Regulatory Flexibility Act: Agencies' Interpretations of Review Requirements Vary

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO updated its previous reports on agencies' use of the Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions to publish final rule notices, focusing on: (1) how many agencies had no Agenda entries that were characterized as Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA) of 1980, section 610 reviews, whether agencies are interpreting the review requirements consistently, and why certain agencies that appeared subject to the requirements had no entries; (2) how many of the section 610 review entries in these Agendas appeared to meet the notification requirements in subsection 610(c); (3) if the section 610 review entries did not appear to meet the statutory requirements, why certain agencies' entries were characterized as section 610 reviews; and (4) whether any federal agencies had revised their section 610 review plans.