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

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A May 20 memo from Obama also directeed agencies to review regulations issued during the past 10 yeards to see if theycontained pre-emptions that are not If they do, agencies should considet amending the regulations, the memo stated. “Pre-emption of statde law by executive department and agencies should be undertaken only with full consideratiojn of the legitimate prerogatives of the statesd and with a sufficient legal basiafor pre-emption,” the memo states. Durinf the Bush administration, regulatory agencies sometimewincluded pre-emption language in the preambleas of regulations.
Obama’s policy against federal pre-emptioh of state laws will result in more lawsuitsaagainst businesses, particularly in the area of producft liability, according to the and the . “Manufacturerzs sell products into anational market, and a national regulatory standard helps ensurer predictable treatment in the courts,” said association Vice President Rosarioi Palmieri. “It’s unwise to replace a regulator system based on objective science and agencyy experts witha 50-state patchwork of oftenn 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 stabiliziny the economy andgrowint jobs, except for thos e in the lawsuit business,” she said. The , formerly known as the , praised Obama’xs memo. It “makes cleard that the rule of law will once again prevailp over the ruleof politics,” said association President Les Weisbrod. “The memo overturne d actions taken by Bush administration bureaucrats who were influencecdby powerful, well-connected corporations who wanted to rewrite and reinterpreyt congressional legislation, undermine the constitutional system of checks and and put the public at risk and compromisde laws designed to give Americans basic rightxs to hold wrongdoers accountable.
” Microloanxs up, big loans down for small businessezs last year Lending data collected by the ’w Office of Advocacy confirms the importance of business credity cards to small firms. A new report foun d that the total valueof small-business loans outstandint increased by 4 percentt in the 12 months that ended in June 2008, down from the previou year’s increase of 8 percent. These numbers are for small-busines loans as a whole, not just SBA loans. The number of business loans of lessthan $100,000 jumped by nearlyg 16 percent, as largd lenders concentrated on credit cards, according to the study.
By contrast, the numberd of business loans inthe $100,000 to $1 milliomn range fell by more than 23 percent. The reportf used call reports submitted by banka as well as Community ReinvestmentAct data. Businessd loans of less than $1 million were considereds to be small-business loans. Based on call report data, the top five small-business lenderd in June 2008 were , , , and Presidenf Barack Obama has selected a ventur capitalist to be chief counsel of the SmalBusiness Administration’s Office of Advocacy, a post usually held by an Winslow Sargeant, a managing director in the technology practice of Madison, Wis.
-based Venturr Investors, is Obama’s choice to head the Officse of Advocacy. The office is an independent entity inside SBA that ensures that federal agenciesa consider the impact of theire regulations onsmall businesses. He is the second venture capitalistr to be selected for a top post atthe SBA. Agencyu Administrator Karen Mills worked as a principal in privatew equity and venture capitall firms for 26 years before she took over the SBA in Sargeant worked as a senior engineer at severap large corporationsbefore co-foundinv Aanetcom, a semiconductor chip compan y that later was acquired by From 2001 to 2005, he served as prograk manager for the Small Businesxs Innovation Research program at the ’s engineering directorate.
Sargeant’s lack of legap training means he will have to rely heavily on the attorneyx at the Office of Much ofthe office’s work involvese analyzing whether government agencies have followed federal laws that requires them to analyze the economic impact that proposer rules would have on small businesses. In fiscal 2008, this input saved small businessesabouft $11 billion in forgone regulatory according to the office.