On March 7, 2018, the House Small Business Committee heard from a panel of small business stakeholders about regulatory reform and President Trump’s Executive Order 13771, which requires the elimination of at least two prior regulations for every new regulation issued. Chairman Steve Chabot has applauded President Trump’s efforts, saying:

Small business owners must navigate what is often a tangled web of complex, confusing, and costly regulations. A start-up company will spend on average over $83,000 in regulatory costs alone in the first year. Small business owners also spend a substantial about of time with regulations, with nearly half of them spending over 40 hours every year to handle new and existing regulations.

Ranking Member Nydia Velázquez expressed concerns with this policy, saying “[w]hile we certainly must be mindful of how regulations affect small businesses, the Trump Administration’s proposal . . . is arbitrary and economically reckless,” and that “[w]e cannot lose sight of the fact that many regulations exist to protect our health and safety and some of them provide small businesses with stability or protection from unfair advantage by their larger competitors.”