Colorado, Georgia Join Other States in Small Biz Reg Relief

WASHINGTON - Small business owners in Colorado and Georgia will have more of an early say on how proposed state regulations may affect them. On April 4, Colorado Gov. Bill Owens extended relief for the state's more than 493,000 small businesses by signing into law HB 06-1041. The new law continues the requirement that state agencies prepare a cost-benefit analysis of proposed rules that may affect small businesses when requested by the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies. In Georgia, Gov. Sonny Perdue signed an executive order in March to help the state's more than 722,000 small businesses have a voice in the state's regulatory process. As in Georgia, most states' regulatory flexibility laws include requirements that states' agencies perform an economic analysis before they regulate and consider less burdensome alternatives for small businesses. Colorado credit unions did $283.7 million worth of business loans in 2004, the last year data was collected by CUNA. Georgia's credit unions did $70.4 million that year. Each credit union still had roughly 1% or less of the business lending market share compared to banks. Banks easily dominated having $25.3 billion in business loans in Colorado and $130 billion in Georgia. Eleven states have introduced similar legislation this year for small business regulatory relief, according to the SBA. Thirteen states and Puerto Rico currently have "active" statutes in place while 29 states have "partially" used statutes.