May

18, 2016

Ms. Vicky Robinson
Chief, Retailer Management and Issuance Branch
Retailer Policy and Management Division, Room 418
3101 Park Center Drive
Alexandria, VA 22302

RE: Enhancing Retailer Standards in the Supplemental Nutrition
Assistance Program

[RIN 0584AE27]

Dear Ms. Robinson,


NATSO, representing Americas Travel Plazas and Truckstops, appreciates
this opportunity to comment on the Department of Agricultures (USDAs or the
Departments) proposed rule, Enhancing Retailer Standards in the Supplemental
Nutrition Assistance Program (Proposed Rule or the Proposal).1 NATSO has
serious concerns with the Proposal, for it would effectively preclude NATSOs
membership from redeeming Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP
or Program) benefits.


Many SNAP recipients do not live in close proximity to large supermarkets
and grocery stores. These beneficiaries often rely on smaller format food retail
locations, including the convenience stores located within travel plazas, to buy food.
Indeed, NATSO members that redeem SNAP benefits generally operate in rural
areas with few other options for financially challenged Americans to purchase food.
Additionally, travel plazas tend to be open 24 hours a day, which is crucial for the
many SNAP recipients that have irregular work schedules. If it were not for these
businesses, many economically disadvantaged Americans would be forced to travel
long distances to purchase SNAP eligible products.

1 81 Fed. Reg. 8015 (Feb. 17, 2016).

NATSOs specific concerns with the Proposal are as follows:

The Proposal provides that no more than 15% of a SNAP retailers total food
sales can be for items that are cooked or heated on-site.
o Travel plazas by their very nature contain both convenience stores
and quick-service or sit-down restaurants. If a retail store stocks a
sufficient quantity of healthy, staple food items to participate in SNAP,
it should be able to participate without regard to whether the retail
store operator also operates a restaurant, deli, or food counter in the
same building. Those two issues are unrelated.

The Proposals depth-of-stock provisions would: (i) require six stock-keeping
units of every staple food item that retailers stock in order to qualify for the
Program; (ii) redefine terms such that multi-ingredient items and foods
traditionally consumed between meals would no longer qualify as staple
foods; and (iii) narrow the meaning of the term variety such that different
types of a single food source would no longer count as different items for
purposes of satisfying the staple food stocking threshold.

o Collectively, these provisions amount to an affirmative rejection of
Congresss considered effort to increase beneficiaries access to
different types of healthy foods without forcing smaller format
retailers out of the Program. Indeed, the Proposals depth-of-stock
provisions appear to be specifically designed to make it extremely
difficult and expensive for travel plazas and other small format
retailers to redeem SNAP benefits.

NATSO understands that the Proposal is just that a proposal. We are grateful that
the Agency has been willing to correspond with our staff and retailers that redeem
SNAP benefits about our concerns with the Proposed Rule. We are eager to
continue working with USDA to ensure that our mutually compatible goals
providing access to a variety of healthy, nutritious food choices to the nations most
economically disadvantaged citizens can be achieved.

In that spirit, we offer the following comments on the Proposed Rule.

BACKGROUND

NATSOs mission is to advance the success of the truckstop and travel plaza
industry. Since 1960, NATSO has dedicated itself to this mission and the needs of
truckstops, travel plazas, their suppliers, and their customers by serving as
Americas official source of information on the industry. NATSO also acts as the
voice of the industry on Capitol Hill and before regulatory agencies.

The travel plaza and truckstop business is a diverse and evolving industry. Every
travel plaza and truckstop location includes multiple profit centers, from motor fuel
sales and auto-repair and supply shops, to hotels, sit-down restaurants, quickservice restaurants and food courts, and convenience stores. It is an evolving
industry that once was tailored solely to truck drivers, and now caters to the entire
traveling public, as well as the local population that lives in close proximity to a
travel center location.

Convenience stores located at travel plazas are increasingly offering fresh food and
meals for customers to purchase and eat at home. Healthy food options have
increased significantly in the industry as customer demands have continued to
evolve. As businesses that pride themselves on recognizing and adapting to their
customers needs, NATSO members realize that often times their stores are the most
convenient place for the local population to shop for food. The industry has
responded, and hopes to continue to grow in the fresh and prepared food space.

The travel plaza industry plays a vital and growing role in SNAP. If these stores did
not participate in the Program, many SNAP beneficiaries would be forced to travel
long distances to purchase food. This would be not only inconvenient, but for many
of them impossible as they might only be able to shop at a store within walking
distance of their home. (Many SNAP recipients do not always have reliable access to
means of transportation.)

CONCERNS WITH THE PROPOSED RULE

As written, the Proposal would effectively ban the truckstop and travel plaza
industry from continuing to redeem SNAP benefits, harming not only these
businesses, but more importantly the beneficiaries who have come to rely on them
to buy food for their families. Because recipients in these rural areas where travel
plazas tend to be located often have limited or no access to transportation to get to a
qualified store, reducing the number of redemption points in this manner would
leave them with even fewer options.

The Proposal is all-the-more troubling because it completely disregards Congresss
clear intent when it passed the 2014 Farm Bill.2 In that legislation, after many hours
of negotiations between both chambers, both political parties, the hunger and retail
communities, and the USDA, Congress sought to strike a balance between (i)
enhancing beneficiaries access to fresh, healthy food options, and (ii) maintaining
the integral role that small format retailers including convenience stores located
within travel plazas play in the Program. Congress clearly wanted to enhance
retailers stocking requirements, but just as clearly did not want to impose burdens
so onerous that small format retailers could not meet them.

2 The Agricultural Act of 2014, Pub.L. 113-79.

To be clear, NATSO does not oppose efforts to increase beneficiaries access to fresh,
healthy food options. But the USDAs proposed rule doesnt do that. In fact, it would
decrease beneficiaries access to healthy items by prohibiting them from buying such
items with SNAP benefits at travel plazas convenience stores.

In the 2014 Farm Bill, Congress adopted changes to the SNAP regulations depth of
stock requirements establishing minimum quantities of staple food items that
retailers must offer for sale in order to redeem SNAP benefits. By increasing the
minimum number of items in each staple food category from three to seven, and
increasing the categories in which retailers must have a perishable item from two to
three, Congress exhibited a clear understanding that (a) onerous stocking
requirements would uniquely affect small format retailers and thereby restrict
access for beneficiaries that frequent them, and (b) this was an undesirable
outcome.

The Agencys Proposal exhibits no such understanding. In fact, one could argue that
it directly dismisses Congresss view by including provisions that appear designed
to force small format retailers out of the Program.

The Proposal would do this in two primary ways:

1)
The 15% Provision

The Proposal provides that no more than 15% of a SNAP retailers total food sales
can be for items that are cooked or heated on-site.3

One of the fundamental features of travel plazas is that they contain both
convenience stores and quick-serve or sit-down restaurants at one location. A good
travel plaza is a one-stop shop for the traveling public, both commercial truck
drivers and recreational travelers. To serve the needs of this diverse customer base
effectively, at all hours of the day and night, NATSO members need to offer a
multitude of food options, from quick grab-and-go snacks and beverages, to more
formal sit-down dining options. This diversity of profit centers all within a single
travel plaza location is integral to the business model.

The Proposal would aggregate food sales across all of these different food-serving
entities at a single location, and impose a cap of 15% for food that is cooked or
heated on-site. It does this even though only the convenience stores at travel plazas
are in the business of redeeming SNAP benefits. If a NATSO member operates a
quick-serve restaurant adjacent to that convenience store, SNAP recipients cannot
redeem their benefits at that restaurant. The two entities are, for purposes of SNAP
and from customers perspectives, completely separate.


3 81 Fed. Reg. 8020.

Nonetheless, the Agency explicitly proposes to conflate the two entities for purposes
of determining SNAP eligibility:

Establishments that include separate businesses that
operate under one roof and have commonalities, such
as sale of similar foods, single management
structure, shared space, logistics, bank accounts,
employees, and/or inventory, are considered to be a
single establishment when determining eligibility to
participate in SNAP as retail food stores.4

This 15% provision appears to be designed to target retailers that redeem SNAP
benefits in exchange for items that are cold at the point-of-sale, only to be heated or
cooked in the store after purchase. Any retailer that who derives more than 15% of
its total food sales from items that are cooked or heated on-site, the Agency posits, is
functionally a restaurant and therefore should not be in the business of redeeming
SNAP benefits, as this would violate Congress intention of restricting SNAP benefits
for hot food purchases. Further, the broad, under one roof language quoted above
appears to be an anti-circumvention provision designed to anticipate retailers
splitting into two separate businesses that operate under one roof in order to gain
eligibility for one of the businesses to participate in SNAP as a retail food store.5

Although arguably well-intentioned, the Agencys approach to solving the problem it
is trying to solve is unnecessarily complex and does not consider the implications it
would have on the diverse array of business models that food retailers employ.

As an initial matter, it is curious that the proposed regulatory text that is designed to
prevent retailers from heating up cold food purchased with SNAP benefits does not
reference this activity. Instead, it takes a round-about approach to targeting this
activity, resulting in a provision that (a) would eliminate from the Program
thousands of retail food stores that do not engage in this activity, and (b) not
necessarily preclude retailers that do engage in this activity from continuing to do
so.

As a practical matter, this rule would result in scenarios where NATSO members
convenience stores would be ineligible to participate in SNAP simply because they
operate adjacent to a separate restaurant. This is arbitrary and contrary to the
Programs objectives. If a retail food store is eligible to participate in SNAP based on
USDAs guidelines, it should not be rendered ineligible simply because it also
operates a restaurant adjacent to that store. Indeed, at many hundreds of NATSO
members SNAP-redeeming convenience store locations, there are also hot food
restaurants operated by the same company that operates the convenience store.

4 81 Fed. Reg. 8020 (emphasis added).

5 81 Fed. Reg. 8016.

The entities operate under one roof and have commonalities such as . . . single
management structure, shared space, logistics, bank accounts, and employees.6

It should be noted that some travel plaza locations take a different business
approach and are more likely to lease out property at their locations to third parties
to operate restaurants and other businesses on-site. For example, rather than the
travel plaza company operating a quick-serve restaurant as a franchisee, the
company might lease out the space to a separate business to run a quick-serve
restaurant as a franchisee. To the customer, there is no noticeable difference
between these two approaches. Yet to USDA, it appears to be a key factor in
determining whether the convenience store that happens to be under the same
roof as the restaurant is permitted to redeem SNAP benefits.

This is silly.

The 15% threshold is completely incompatible with travel plazas business model
far more than 15% of a given travel plazas food sales will be derived from food that
is cooked or heated on-site when factoring in these other restaurant-type entities.
This 15% provision would arbitrarily and indiscriminately foreclose many hundreds
of travel plazas in the country from being able to redeem SNAP benefits.

For those NATSO members who operate convenience stores at locations that do not
also have a separate restaurant-type entity at the same location, these stores may
well offer hot, prepared foods to their customers. This, likewise, should be
immaterial to the SNAP retailer eligibility determination.

Beyond these negative policy consequences, the 15% provision is premised upon a
flawed method of determining retailer eligibility one that Congress specifically
rejected during the 2014 Farm Bill negotiations. Once a retailer meets the
necessary eligibility requirements to redeem SNAP benefits, it should be allowed to
participate in the Program. NATSO members are in the business of identifying
products that their customers want to buy and then selling those products. As with
any successful retailer, they understand that demand drives supply, supply does not
drive demand. For this reason, it makes little sense to tie a food retailers eligibility
to participate in SNAP to what products its customers choose to purchase, for this is
a variable over which retailers do not have control.

Placing a ceiling on the quantity of hot and prepared food items which are
ineligible to be purchased with SNAP benefits that SNAP retailers are permitted to
sell would not further the Programs purpose to promote the general welfare and
safeguard the health and well being of the Nations population by raising levels of
nutrition among low-income households.7 In fact, it threatens the achievement of
this purpose by permitting the Agency to make arbitrary decisions denying qualified

6 Compare 81 Fed. Reg. 8020 (see fn. 4 supra and accompanying text).
7 7 C.F.R. 271.1(a).

retailers applications to redeem SNAP benefits. This, in turn, denies those retailers
SNAP customers a convenience source for food.

If a retail store stocks a sufficient quantity of healthy, staple food items to
participate in SNAP, it should be able to participate without regard to whether it is
operating in the same building as a restaurant or deli. Those two issues simply are
unrelated.

NATSO suggests that if USDA is seeking to prohibit SNAP retailers from heating up
cold food that beneficiaries purchase with their SNAP benefits, the final rule contain
narrow, well-tailored language that explicitly prohibits SNAP retailers from heating
up cold food that beneficiaries purchase with their SNAP benefits.

NATSO notes, however, that the Agency should consider a variety of complexities
associated with this approach.

For example, many retailers offer microwaves for their customers SNAP and nonSNAP to use. These microwaves tend to be utilized by customers who purchase
fresh, ready-made, prepackaged sandwiches. Some retailers keep these
microwaves behind the counter (so customers have to request that a cashier heat up
purchased food), while others provide microwaves on a self-serve basis in the store.
USDA should, if possible, avoid placing retailers in a position where they need to
treat their SNAP customers differently than their non-SNAP customers, including
with respect to use of a microwave.

2)
Depth-of-Stock Provisions

The Proposal would require all SNAP retailers to offer at least seven different
varieties of food items in each of the four staple food categories, including one
perishable item in at least three of those categories. These mandates are consistent
with the 2014 Farm Bill. The Proposal, however, goes well beyond Congresss
intent by changing the definitions of terms that Congress relied upon in reaching the
delicate balance it achieved.

It does this in three ways:


1) Redefining staple food and accessory food

The Proposal would redefine the term staple food to exclude multiple ingredient
items and items that tend to be consumed between meals. This eliminates many
items that NATSO members sell from qualifying as staple food items for purposes
of satisfying their SNAP retailer eligibility threshold. Food items that would no
longer count as staple food under the Proposal include multi-ingredient items that
people purchase and eat at home, including potpies, soups, cold pizza, and frozen
dinners. The Proposal would also expand the definition of accessory foods, which

do not count as staple food items, to encompass snack-food items such as crackers
and carrot-and-dip to go packs.

USDA appears to justify redefining staple food by suggesting that it is intended to
prevent confusion and unintended consequences caused by foods with multiple
ingredients, such administrative complexities associated with not knowing which
staple food category multi-ingredient items belong.8 There are, however, a number
of ways to resolve this purported confusion other than simply excluding a large
swath of food items from the definition.

For example, USDA could provide guidance to enable food retailers to easily
determine which staple food category certain food products fall into. This could
include a list of food product items and their corresponding categories. (E.g.,
chicken soup = meat, poultry, and fish; vegetable soup = fruit and vegetable;
chicken potpie = bread or cereal, etc.).

Alternatively, it could entail guidance that details how food retailers can analyze
ingredients to determine the most predominant ingredient and then determine the
appropriate staple food category for certain food items. Although this may sound
complicated, Food and Drug Administration regulations require ingredients to be
listed in descending order by weight.9 This should enable retailers to easily
examine food package labels to determine the appropriate staple food category.

With respect to the proposed redefinition of accessory foods to preclude snack
foods from qualifying as staple foods, USDA appears to justify this change by
pointing to those retailers that sell predominantly accessory foods in order to
qualify as SNAP retailers, stating that such retailers do not further the purposes of
SNAP.10 Although this concern is not entirely invalid, the Proposal would result in
unintended consequences whereby small format retailers that market healthy snack
food items such as fruit cups, vegetable-and-dip to go packs, and the like could not
rely on these healthy items to help satisfy their staple food thresholds.

If the Agency is concerned with retailers selling predominantly accessory foods to
qualify to redeem SNAP benefits, it should draft narrow, well tailored language that
prevent retailers that sell predominantly accessory foods from qualifying to redeem
SNAP benefits.







8 81 Fed. Reg. 8017.
9 21 C.F.R. 101.4(a).
10 81 Fed. Reg. 8017.


2) Redefining variety

The Proposal prevents retailers from counting different types of a single food source
as multiple varieties of that item. For example, under the Proposed regulatory
text, ham and salami would both qualify as one variety of item pork for
purposes of satisfying the seven-variety staple food threshold. Similarly, turkey
burgers, sliced turkey, and ground turkey would all qualify as one variety turkey
rather than different three different varieties in the meat, poultry, and fish
category.

The Proposals preamble does not attempt to justify this significant shift in policy
beyond saying that it is designed to clear up confusion that may exist in current
regulations.11 NATSO is not aware of any such confusion. Indeed, retailer
confusion in this area can be sourced entirely to the language in the proposed
regulatory text that would treat all food items from the same food source (e.g.,
chicken) as a single variety.12 There is little policy justification for treating all
items from the same food source as a single variety of item.

USDA officials have suggested publicly that this was not the intended result, and that
different food items that derive from the same animal species should in fact be able
to qualify as different varieties of food for purposes of the staple food threshold:

House Committee on Agriculture Chairman Conaway:
. So can you talk to us about the seven varieties does
chicken I mean, theres ground beef and sliced beef count as
one variety or two?


Under Secretary for Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services
Kevin Concannon:
. So, for example, the questions youve raised, can two types
of meet be counted or, lets say ground beef versus sliced beef,
pork chops versus bacon, as an example. We want the rule
the final rule to be reasonable to one that reflects the ability
of stores across the country. I had the occasion this past week
to meet with store-owners from Iowa, a state in which I live.

Im very familiar with the importance of those stores in rural
areas. I want to assure the Committee . . . that the proposed or
the final rule will reflect reality and will not inadvertently end
up costing us access to those needed stores in rural, or even
urban areas of the country.



11 81 Fed. Reg. 8018
12 81 Fed. Reg. 8021.

Conaway:
Okay. Ground beef and sliced beef. One or two?


Concannon:
I would . . .

Conaway:
Skim milk and whole milk. One or two?


Concannon:
If left to me on the ground Im not sure about the milk one but certainly
on the beef one, I would count those as two items.13

NATSO urges the Agency to draft regulatory text in the final rule that reflects this
understanding.


3) Clarifying the meaning of continuous basis

The Proposal specifies that in order to offer a food item on a continuous basis as
required under the Program regulations, SNAP retailers must publicly display at
least six units of each item that the retailer is counting toward the seven-variety
threshold in each of the four staple food categories. This represents a 14-fold
increase from current requirements. Whats more, since the Proposal would require
retailers to display at least six items at all times, as a practical matter they will be
required to stock far more than six items in order to replace items that are sold
without falling out of compliance with the depth-of-stock mandates. As the
proposed regulatory text is drafted, this provision appears to require that all six
stock keeping units (SKUs) be on the shelf for the customer to see; units in the
back room would not count toward the six-SKU minimum.

USDA justifies this aspect of the Proposal by insinuating that it is necessary to
ensure[] that retailers can meet the statutory requirement to offer for sale, on a
continuous basis, staple foods in each staple food category.14 This is not true. In
fact, many retailers are able to offer food items on a continuous basis without having
six items on display. Small format retailers have very limited shelf space, and to
require six SKUs for the requisite staple food items at all times is impractical. This is
especially true when the products in question are unlikely to sell very quickly, which
will be the case if the Proposals other provisions redefining staple food and
accessory food are finalized as proposed, as SNAP retailers would be required to
stock many items that their customers may not be inclined to purchase.


13 See House Committee on Agriculture, Examining the Agiculture Department Organization and

Program Administration, Day 1, Panel 1 (March 17, 2016).

14 81 Fed. Reg. 8018.

The final rule should lower the six-SKU minimum, explicitly permit items that are in
the back room (but on-site) to count toward this minimum provided at least one
SKU is on display for the public to see, and explicitly state in the regulatory text that
in the event the publicly displayed units are all purchased, retailers will have a
reasonable period of time to replace them on the shelves without falling out of
compliance. This should include retailers demonstrating that they have submitted
a purchase order for new products that have all been sold. These revisions are
necessary to accommodate small format retailers, especially those located in rural
areas where product deliveries occur less frequently.

Taken together, the Proposals depth-of-stock provisions represent a dramatic and
unnecessary departure from current rules. They fundamentally disrupt the
compromise that Congress reached in the 2014 Farm Bill by changing the
underlying definitions of terms that Congress relied upon in establishing enhanced
depth of stock requirements.

Perhaps most troubling, one could reasonably interpret these provisions as being
specifically designed to make it extremely difficult and expensive for travel plazas
and convenience stores to redeem SNAP benefits. Requiring a SNAP retailer to stock
food products that Agency officials would prefer customers to buy would not change
the products that SNAP retailers sell, nor would it change the products that SNAP
beneficiaries buy. Demand drives supply. These provisions would, however,
discourage many retailers from participating in the Program because it is simply
bad business for retailers to stock products that their customers SNAP and nonSNAP simply do not want to buy.

For those small format retailers who continue to participate, it would very likely
lead to wasting food, as the retailers would be stocking perishable products that will
not move quickly off of their shelves.

It would also lead to inventory management complications. Selling fresh, perishable
food products in the rural areas where NATSO members tend to be located is
complex. Deliveries are less frequent than at larger grocery stores located in more
population-dense areas. Whats more, travel plaza companies wholesale suppliers
make fewer items available to travel plazas than they make available to larger
grocery chains. Availability is tied largely to what a supplier identifies through
sophisticated data analysis to be most likely to sell in NATSO members specific
channel of commerce. It is certainly not a given that NATSO members suppliers will
make available a sufficient quantity of food items for sale at all NATSO members
locations to enable such locations to qualify for the Program under the proposed
standards.

On top of this, travel plazas stock rooms are generally stacked to the ceiling with
products that the travel plaza operator has determined his or her customers want to
buy. Injecting an excessive amount of other types of products into their supply will
be extremely complicated for store-level managers and inventory managers.


Finally, the Proposals depth-of-stock provisions are exceedingly vague and
ambiguous. This will result in uncertainty and confusion for retailers trying to
ascertain whether they offer the requisite food items to participate in the Program.
NATSO urges USDA to release clear, precise guidance that food retailers can utilize
to help them guide their SNAP eligibility decisionmaking.

However, it is imperative that all policy provisions are reflected in the final
regulatory text, and not relegated to the final rules preamble or associated guidance.
Such material does not have the full force and effect of law. It would therefore be
inappropriate to include important, substantive provisions in these materials.

If the depth of stock provisions are finalized as proposed, it would lead many small
format retailers to completely reevaluate the decision to participate in SNAP. Many
will exit the Program.

The Need for Access

NATSO appreciates that the Agency recognizes the important role rural food
retailers play in providing access to food for Americans that live a long distance
from traditional supermarkets.15 The proposed regulatory text, however, does little
to assuage this concern. Simply stating that the Agency will consider whether the
[retail] applicant is located in an area with significantly limited access to food16 is
not a clear regulatory standard, but an invitation for arbitrary bureaucratic
decision-making. This could be improved with explicit guidelines stipulating that
small format retailers located in rural areas defined based on proximity to larger,
traditional grocery stores will be subject to modified depth-of-stock, and spelling
out those standards.

Regulatory Impact

NATSO has serious concerns that USDA has not undertaken a sufficient analysis of
the impact that its Proposed Rule would have on the thousands of small businesses
that it would affect. USDA is of course required to perform a regulatory impact
analysis under the guidelines set out under Executive Order 12866,17 Executive
Order 13563,18 the Regulatory Flexibility Act,19 and the Unfunded Mandates Reform
Act of 1995.20

15 81 Fed. Reg. 8021.
16 Id.

17 Exec. Order 12866, 58 Fed. Reg. No. 190 (Sept. 30, 1993), available

at www.reginfo.gov/public/jsp/Utilities/EO_12866.pdf.
18 Exec. Order No. 13563, 76 Fed. Reg. 3821 (Jan.18, 2011). Executive Order 13563 demands that an

agency tailor its regulations to impose the least burden on society.

19 P.L. 96-354, as amended by the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act of 1996, P.L.

104-121, 110 Stat. 857 (codified as amended in scattered sections of 5 U.S.C. 601 et seq.). In the
event that a proposal is projected to impose a significant economic impact on a substantial number


CONCLUSION

NATSO urges the Department to consider the beneficiarys perspective as it finalizes
the Proposal. Beneficiaries are often in a position where, sometimes, the limited
hours of the day require them to prepare affordable, quick-and-easy meals for their
families to eat. It is a situation that all Americans who are fortunate enough not to
rely on SNAP often confront. This activity should not become a luxury unavailable
to SNAP beneficiaries who live in rural parts of the country. It is not fair to them,
and would make the already-difficult lives these citizens lead more difficult.

The Agency has gone too far with this Proposal. If finalized, it would effectively
prohibit smaller format retailers from participating in SNAP, and thereby harm the
SNAP beneficiaries that it is trying to help.

NATSOs members take seriously their role in the Program, and are hopeful that
they will be able to continue and grow their SNAP participation in the coming years.

________________________________________
David H. Fialkov
Vice President, Government Affairs
Legislative and Regulatory Counsel
NATSO

of small entities, a federal agency must assess that impact and consider regulatory alternatives that
would minimize the impact to small businesses. 5 U.S.C. 603, 605.
20 P. L. 104-4 (Mar. 22, 1995), 2 USC 1501 et seq.