Following up on last week’s entry about the value in getting to know the United States Small Business Administration (SBA), today we bring your attention to an interesting page on the SBA’s website aimed at improving outdated federal regulations that do more harm than good.

The SBA’s r3 — or, the Regulatory Review and Reform Initiative — seeks to “identify and address existing federal regulations that should be revised because they are ineffective, duplicative, or out of date.” This is done with your help: The r3 program is described as a tool for small business stakeholders to bring attention to needed reforms that are directly affecting their businesses.

From the SBA’s website:

[r3] includes the process under Section 610 of the Regulatory Flexibility Act for agencies to consider whether their current regulations are still needed, and the degree to which technology, economic conditions, or other factors have changed since their rules were first promulgated. r3 also includes a process by which interested stakeholders can nominate existing regulations for reform, and monitor the progress that agencies make toward achieving those reforms.

The r3 program is intended to help small businesses address the cumulative Federal regulatory burden, which is now estimated to exceed $1.1 trillion. Through the r3 program, we believe federal agencies will do a better job of identifying and revising rules that need to be reformed.

What’s compelling about this initiative is that it gives the small business community not only a forum to voice concerns over government rules that don’t work anymore, but also the power to actually get the ball rolling on reforming those rules. The complete description and outline of the program is available at the SBA’s website, here.