BILL ANALYSIS
SB 561
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Date of Hearing: June 26, 2001
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON BUSINESS AND PROFESSIONS
Lou Correa, Chair
SB 561 (Morrow) - As Amended: April 30, 2001
SENATE VOTE : 39-0
SUBJECT : Administrative Procedure Act.
SUMMARY : Corrects technical drafting errors enacted last year
regarding the rulemaking provisions of the Administrative
Procedure Act (APA). Specifically, this bill :
1)Consolidates duplicative provisions in the APA relating to the
use of electronic communications by public agencies to give
notice of proposed regulations, or proposed regulatory appeal
or amendment, and to receive comments by electronic mail.
2)Corrects a defect in the definition of "proposed action" for
purposes of the administrative rulemaking provisions of the
APA.
3)Deletes a definition of "public notice" that some public
agencies found ambiguous.
EXISTING LAW
1)Requires each state agency that proposes regulations pursuant
to the administrative rulemaking provisions of the APA to post
specified information on its website regarding the proposed
regulation, regulatory repeal, or amendment.
2)Requires an agency that maintains an Internet website or other
similar forum, to publish on its website or other forum,
specified materials relating to a proposed regulation.
3)Defines "proposed action" for the purposes of the
administrative rulemaking provisions of the APA.
4)Defines "public notice" for the purposes of the administrative
rulemaking provisions of the APA.
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown
SB 561
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COMMENTS : The purpose of this bill is to implement
recommendations of the sponsor, the California Law Revision
Commission (CLRC), correcting technical problems relating to the
rulemaking provisions of the APA.
Last year, two bills were enacted - AB 505 (Wright), Chapter
1059, Statutes of 2000 and
AB 1822 (Wayne), Chapter 1060, Statutes of 2000 - that affected
the rulemaking procedure and the use of electronic
communications under the APA. According to the sponsor, an
error in coordinating these bills resulted in enactment of two
essentially duplicative measures with some minor differences.
This bill is intended to eliminate redundancy and harmonize the
inconsistencies between the two sections of the Government Code
by repealing one section and amending the other to preserve the
substance of both sections.
AB 505 (Wright) included a definition of "proposed action" as
"the regulatory action submitted to the office (Office of
Administrative Law) for publication in the California Regulatory
Notice Register." The sponsor states that there is a technical
problem with this definition as it is not the proposed action
itself that is published in the California Regulatory Notice
Register, but a notice of the proposed action. This bill adds
language to correct this defect.
The administrative provisions of the APA pertaining to required
publication of information on state agency websites include a
definition of "public notice" as "a notice that is required to
be given by an agency to persons who have requested notice of
the agency's regulatory action." According to the sponsor, this
definition is potentially confusing. Two state agencies
informed CLRC that they were concerned that the language could
be read expansively to require publication of any rulemaking
document, since those documents are public and must be provided
to interested persons on request. According to the sponsor,
however, this was not the intent of the language. Therefore,
this bill removes this definition and clarifies what is required
to be published on agency websites.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
California Law Revision Commission (sponsor)
SB 561
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Opposition
None on file.
Analysis Prepared by : Mark McKenzie / B. & P. / (916) 319-3301