Protect Small Businesses From Excessive Paperwork Act of 2025

Floor Speech

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Mr. NUNN of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues from both Arkansas and California for their support of my bill, the Protect Small Businesses from Excessive Paperwork Act.

Mr. Speaker, in just the opening weeks of Congress, we have already led on bipartisan solutions to help our small businesses be successful and get a reprieve from the vast overreach that currently emanates from Washington, D.C.

Small businesses, as we have noted, are the backbone of America. In my home State, they make up nearly 80 percent of our State's growth alone.

Sadly, there are bureaucrats here in Washington who are focused on fines, fees, and prison time for nearly 32 million small businesses that only woke up to new regulations just showing up on the scene. Unfortunately, nearly 23 million of those small businesses have never even heard or received information about the new requirements that they must meet. In fact, some even mistook them for scams coming out of a Federal agency they have never even heard of.

Small businesses should not bear the risk of fines of up to $600 per day for every violation and up to nearly 24 months in prison for failure to report on a law they weren't even familiar with.

In the first year alone, it will cost a small business around $8,000 in compliance fees. That blows my mind. In fact, it compelled me to invite the Director under the Biden administration of FinCEN, Director Gacki, to come to Iowa. Yes, we were Iowa nice to her, but we were Iowa firm. She heard from Sonrisers Popcorn and Berg Electric, which told her how much these new requirements would directly impact their Main Street businesses.

To make matters worse, she informed them with a straight face that over 7 million businesses had already complied. This was with only weeks before final implementation went into effect. To be clear, this meant that around 80 percent of the small businesses remained completely unaware of the new rules and regulations and risked those fines I mentioned.

With 99 percent of Iowa's businesses being small businesses, those fines would add up and shutter Main Streets across my community and this country. Nationally, it would total around $160 billion in compliance costs levied upon Main Street businesses, small family farms, and communities across our country.

I think we can all agree that regulators should be focused on protecting small businesses, not fining them out of existence.

Keeping a small business open requires that a mom-and-pop shop put in a lot of hard work and long hours. It means that new entrepreneurs can be innovative and spend money to grow our economy, not trying to meet some arbitrary government regulation. Our government should not stifle entrepreneurs with a heavy hand when they are only doing their best to serve our communities.

That is why I am committed to fighting for Main Street. I am committed to fighting for our family farms. I am committed to fighting for our hometowns.

This bill would help protect small businesses from excessive paperwork. This is a simple solution that we worked on together, and it is one of the most pressing concerns that small businesses face.

Whether you are a Democrat or a Republican, we all have small businesses and a hometown responsibility to fight for them today.

I am grateful for everyone who helped to lead and sponsor this bill, including the National Small Business Association, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and our National Cattlemen's Association. Even cowboys want less regulation.

I also thank our cosponsors on this bill, including our co-leads, House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, and my friends across the aisle, Representative Sharice Davids and Representative Don Davis.

As a result, we have the opportunity to once again make sure that not only America is great but that our hometowns have the opportunity to prosper and hold Washington accountable.

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