The financial reform bill contains a small-business related amendment  that hasn't received a lot of attention. And it's either very small-business friendly or very unfriendly, depending on whom you listen to.

Sponsored by Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine, the ranking Republican on the Small Business Committee, it directs the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to take into account how proposed regulations would affect the cost of credit to small companies. It also mandates that the bureau be covered by the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act of 1996.