As I was saying …

We've heard from quite a few members this year who tell us they have been visited more frequently—and treated more harshly—by Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) inspectors. We haven't yet heard from members who are found in violation of new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rules governing lead paint (implementation was delayed). But we expect to. And at last count, there are 744 new federal regulations and rulemakings in the pipeline that could directly affect all small businesses.

A decade-old study by the Small Business Administration (SBA) set the cost of regulatory compliance for businesses with fewer than 500 employees at $5,000 per employee per year. According to SBA, firms with 20 to 49 employees spend, on average, 19 cents of every revenue dollar on regulatory costs. Other studies have estimated federal regulations cause $1.5 trillion in economic output to be lost each year. That's trillion with a "t," and that stands for trouble.

Consider what the roofing industry is facing:

• The possible elimination of slide guards as an option on roofs with slopes from 4:12 up to 8:12
• Expansion of EPA's lead paint rules to cover all buildings constructed before 1978
• Forty-one provisions in the new health care law that require or may require new rulemakings (The bill also requires 38 studies and 59 evaluations.)
• No less than 100 new rulemakings on the Department of Labor's regulatory agenda
• Fifteen new regulations moving forward from the Department of Homeland Security, each of which will affect the business community

Enough already. It's a clear sign of the times when OSHA issues, as it did in August, a press release heralding the $75,000 fine it issued to SeaWorld of Florida LLC for the death of one of its whale trainers.

According to the press release, OSHA discovered "SeaWorld trainers had an extensive history of unexpected and potentially dangerous incidents involving killer whales … ." Well, stop the presses.

Don't get me wrong. We're not opposed to a reasonable amount of government regulation. But at a time when small businesses are the best hope for restoring job creation, it's not even close to reasonable to continue the regulatory piling on we're experiencing.

What's worse is the regulators themselves acknowledge there is no hope for fair and even enforcement of the mountain of new rules.

Seems like a bad idea all the way around.

Bill Good is NRCA's executive vice president.