South OC Times

I also want to thank my colleague and friend, Representative Gottheimer from New Jersey, for co-leading H.R. 1548 – the Improving Access to Small Business Information Act – with me.

My bill—H.R. 1548—is simple. The legislation would amend the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 to specify that actions—like conducting field surveys—of the Advocate for Small Business Capital Formation are not a collection of information under the Paper Reduction Act (PRA). Currently, the Office of the Advocate must adhere to a prolonged process to get approval from OMB on surveys that could help get better information on the capital formation challenges small businesses and their investors face on a daily basis.

Former Director of the Office, Martha Miller, told our office “the Office went through a yearlong process just to collect registration information for our annual forum and ask a few basic questions to understand the audience attending.” So, by the time the Office got a response from OMB, the circumstances of the economy had changed, and some of the survey questions were outdated and did not serve their intended purpose. Rather than answering unrelated questions to the difficulties facing small businesses, it would have been so much more effective for small business owners and investors to be focused on analyzing the substantive issues and sharing effective perspectives on capital formation policy.

The SEC’s Office of the Advocate for Small Business Capital Formation is the primary office that looks to advance the interests of small businesses and their investors at the SEC and in the capital markets. With the ever-changing economic and regulatory environment, the Office is required to adapt quickly to the needs of small businesses and gather timely feedback to improve capital raising policy. H.R. 1548 streamlines access to tools that the Office can utilize to gather more effective and timely data. The better information that the Office can gather, the better Congress and the public can identify policy gaps and facilitate small business capital formation.