The Regulatory Flexibility Act requires federal agencies to review regulations for their impact on small businesses and consider less burdensome alternatives.

He said the agency failed to follow provisions of that law and previous court rulings requiring that "before it impose a ban on a product it first evaluate and then reject the less burdensome alternatives laid out for it by Congress."

However, the Departments point out that the rules have been designed to be the least burdensome alternative for state, local, and tribal governments.

This revision allows companies to choose the least burdensome alternative.

The government's general policy will be to explore voluntary agreements and other less burdensome alternatives to regulation wherever this is practical.

The process for seeking these less burdensome alternatives is three-fold.

Section 205 of the Act requires agencies to identify and consider a reasonable number of regulatory alternatives and to adopt the least costly, most cost-effective, or least burdensome alternative that achieves the objectives of the rule.

This bill requires federal agencies to consider the economic impact of their regulations on small businesses, and requires them to consider less burdensome alternatives if the impact is significant.

It ultimately chose what it believed to be the least costly and least burdensome alternative.

And even if many costs cannot be quantified in dollar terms, they say, the mere effort to identify them systematically could prompt agencies to look for less burdensome alternatives.