to enter into various lines of business and to compete. In January 1980, small business leaders elected by their peers assembled as delegates to the first modern White House Conference on Small Business. The final conference report noted that "during the past decade, the growth of government regulation has been explosive, particularly in such areas as affirmative-action hiring, energy conservation, and protection for consumers, workers, and the environment. Small business people recognize that some government regulation is essential for maintaining an orderly society. But there are now 90 agencies issuing thousands of new rules each year." Moreover, the report said, the new Office of Advocacy had estimated that small firms spent $12.7 billion annually on government paperwork. Among the conference recommendations, a top vote-getter was a recommendation calling for "sunset review" and economic impact analysis of regulations, as well as a regulatory review board with small business representation. The conference delegates recommended putting the onus of measuring regulatory costs on the regulatory agencies—to "require all federal agencies to analyze the cost and relevance of regulations to small businesses." Requirements of the Act The White House Conference recommendations lent significant impetus for the passage, in September 1980, of the Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA). The intent of the act is stated in the notes for the act: It is the purpose of this Act to establish as a principle of regulatory issuance that agencies shall endeavor, consistent with the objectives of the rule and of applicable statutes, to fit regulatory and informational requirements to the scale of the businesses, organizations, and governmental jurisdictions subject to regulation. To achieve this principle, agencies are required to solicit and consider flexible regulatory proposals and to explain the rationale for their actions to assure that such proposals are given serious consideration. The Regulatory Flexibility Act was originally passed in 1980 (P.L. 4). The act was amended by the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act of 1996 (P.L. ), the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (P.L. ), and the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010 (P.L. ). The key requirement of the law is that federal agencies must analyze the impact of their regulatory actions on small entities (small businesses, small non-profit organizations and small jurisdictions of government) and, where the regulatory impact is likely to be "significant", affecting a "substantial number" of these small entities, seek less burdensome alternatives for them. Both current