Small Business Advocate Gets Paperwork Exemption: Less Red Tape, Faster Info?

The “Improving Access to Small Business Information Act” is a short, targeted bill focused on one thing: making life easier for the Advocate for Small Business Capital Formation, which is an office within the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). This office is supposed to be the voice for small businesses navigating complex securities laws and helping them raise money.

Cutting the Red Tape for the Advocate

What this bill actually does is remove a massive administrative hurdle called the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) from most of the Advocate’s information-gathering activities (Sec. 2). Think of the PRA as the government’s quality control for forms and surveys. Before any federal agency can ask the public for information—whether it’s a detailed census or a simple comment card—it usually has to submit a lengthy justification to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for approval. This process can take months, which is terrible if you’re trying to move fast and gather timely data from small businesses.

By exempting the Advocate from this requirement, the bill aims to speed up the process. If the Advocate wants to quickly survey startups about a new regulation or gather feedback on access to capital, they won't have to wait for OMB clearance. This means they can potentially be more responsive and effective in their role representing small businesses. For a small business owner, this could translate to faster, more relevant policy recommendations coming from the SEC.

The Fine Print: What Stays and What Goes

While the exemption is broad, the bill doesn't eliminate all oversight. It keeps certain key requirements from the PRA in place, specifically those related to justifying the necessity of the collection and ensuring the information is used responsibly (44 U.S.C. 3506(c)(1), 3506(c)(4), 3506(i), and 3507(a)(1)(A)). This is the bill trying to walk a fine line: giving the Advocate flexibility while still requiring them to be thoughtful about what they ask.

However, the bill explicitly states the SEC doesn't have to do two major things for these exempted collections: they don't have to submit the collection to OMB for approval, and they don't have to display the OMB control number on the form (Sec. 2). The control number is how the public knows a form has been officially cleared. Removing the OMB approval step is the biggest change here, trading external oversight for internal efficiency. The trade-off is that while the Advocate can move faster, the public loses the full transparency that comes with the standard PRA review process, where agencies have to publicly justify the burden they are placing on respondents.