Several GOP senators are reviving the idea of folding the Small Business Administration into the Commerce Department.

Sen. Richard Burr, R-NC, introduced a bill to consolidate the Labor and Commerce departments into a single new agency. The bill also would move the SBA into the new consolidated agency and transfer the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration from Commerce to the Interior Department, he said in a news release.

Burr said the consolidation would provide cost savings by combining duplicative functions. Sens. Dan Coats, R-IN, and James Inhofe, R-OK, are co-sponsors.

Burr said his plan builds upon President Obama’s proposal to combine six agencies, including the SBA, within Commerce in January 2012. The goal was to handle business and trade at one agency, ease regulation and reduce duplication

However, some advocates, including Lloyd Chapman, president of the American Small Business League, have warned that consolidation would diminish the SBA.

But Burr’s spokesman Robert Reid told the Charlotte Observer that was not the case. “It’s not closing the SBA. If anything, it’s elevating their interests in the executive branch,” Reid said.

More information: Charlotte Observer article: http://goo.gl/rDb5tT