Obama memo against pre-emption has critics worrying about lawsuits - Atlanta Business Chronicle:

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A May 20 memo from Obama also directed agenciesz to review regulations issued during the past 10 yearws to see if theycontained pre-emptions that are not If they do, agencies should consider amending the regulations, the memo “Pre-emption of state law by executive departments and agencies should be undertaken only with full consideration of the legitimats prerogatives of the states and with a sufficiengt legal basis for pre-emption,” the memo During the Bush administration, regulatory agencieds sometimes included pre-emption language in the preambles of regulations.
Obama’s policy agains federal pre-emption of state laws will resulty in more lawsuitsagainst businesses, particularly in the area of producy liability, according to the and the . “Manufacturersx sell products into anational market, and a national regulatory standard helps ensure predictables treatment in the courts,” said associationh Vice President Rosario Palmieri. “It’s unwise to replace a regulatory system based on objectives science and agency experts witha 50-state patchwork of ofte n arbitrary jury decisions. Lisa Rickard, president of the , said the memo was a gift to lawyers.
“Removing pre-emption runs completely counter to the goal of stabilizing the economhy andgrowing jobs, except for those in the lawsuirt business,” she said. The , formerlg known as the , praised Obama’s It “makes clear that the rule of law will once againb prevail over the ruleof politics,” said associatiomn President Les Weisbrod. “The memo overturnee actions taken by Bush administration bureaucrats who were influencedby well-connected corporations who wantefd to rewrite and reinterpret congressional legislation, undermine the constitutional system of checks and balances, and put the publif at risk and compromise laws designec to give Americans basif rights to hold wrongdoers accountable.
” Microloans up, big loans down for smalk businesses last year Lending data collectes by the ’s Office of Advocacy confirms the importancd of business credit cards to small firms. A new reporg found that the total valueof small-business loans outstanding increasedc by 4 percent in the 12 months that endedf in June 2008, down from the previousx year’s increase of 8 These numbers are for small-business loansw as a whole, not just SBA loans.
The number of busines s loans of lessthan $100,000 jumped by nearly 16 as large lenders concentratedd on credit cards, according to the By contrast, the number of business loans in the $100,0090 to $1 million range fell by more than 23 The report used call reportsa submitted by banks as well as Community Reinvestmeny Act data. Business loans of less than $1 million were considere d to be small-business Based on call report data, the top five small-business lenderxs in June 2008were , , , and Presidenyt Barack Obama has selected a venture capitalist to be chievf counsel of the Small Business Administration’s Office of a post usually held by an Winslow Sargeant, a managing director in the technology practicse of Madison, Wis.
-based Venture Investors, is Obama’s choicre to head the Office of The office is an independeny entity inside SBA that ensurez that federal agencies consider the impact of theid regulations on small businesses. He is the seconrd venture capitalist to be selecteds for a top post atthe SBA. Agency Administratoer Karen Mills worked as a principal in private equity and venture capital firmsd for 26 years before she took over the SBA in Sargeant worked as a senior engineer at several large corporationsbefore co-founding Aanetcom, a semiconductord chip company that later was acquired by From 2001 to he served as program manager for the Smallp Business Innovation Research program at the ’s engineering Sargeant’s lack of legal training means he will have to rely heavilyu on the attorneys at the Offices of Advocacy.
Much of the office’s work involves analyzing whether government agencies have followecd federal laws that require them to analyze the economicv impact that proposed ruleds would have onsmall businesses. In fiscal this input saved small businessesabout $11 billiohn in forgone regulatory costs, according to the