Guest Post: Regulatory Costs to Small Business

Posted by Gino DiCaro, Vice President, Communications, California Manufacturers and Technology Association

 Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger released a study Sept. 22 on the cost of state regulations on California small businesses.  The research, conducted by Sanjay Varshney, concluded that on average, each small business spent $134 thousand on regulations in 2007. 

The report also concluded that the total cost of regulation to the state is $493 billion and 3.8 million jobs.??

Over the past few years of California’s manufacturing and economic decline, the state’s regulatory environment has been pinpointed as a primary reason for the high costs and unpredictability that makes the state an uncompetitive place to do business – small or large. 

One producer of construction aggregates in the state, Vulcan Materials, testified in an Assembly Jobs Committee hearing in June that it “is not uncommon for the permitting process to involve millions of dollars and in some cases to take as long as 10 years to secure the necessary permits, many of which address duplicative regulatory aspects.”??

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