BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 12
Page 1
ASSEMBLY THIRD READING
AB
12 (Cooley)
As Amended April 22, 2015
Majority vote
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|Committee |Votes |Ayes |Noes |
| | | | |
| | | | |
|----------------+------+---------------------+--------------------|
|Accountability |9-0 |Salas, Lackey, | |
| | |Brough, Burke, | |
| | |Frazier, Beth | |
| | |Gaines, Irwin, | |
| | |Medina, Rodriguez | |
| | | | |
|----------------+------+---------------------+--------------------|
|Appropriations |17-0 |Gomez, Bigelow, | |
| | |Bonta, Calderon, | |
| | |Chang, Daly, Eggman, | |
| | |Gallagher, | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | |Eduardo Garcia, | |
| | |Gordon, Holden, | |
| | |Jones, Quirk, | |
| | |Rendon, Wagner, | |
| | |Weber, Wood | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
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AB 12
Page 2
SUMMARY: Requires state agencies and departments to review,
adopt, amend or repeal any applicable regulations that are
duplicative, overlapping, inconsistent, or out of date.
Specifically, this bill:
1)Requires state agencies, on or before January 1, 2018, to adopt,
amend or repeal, using procedures provided in current law, those
regulations identified as duplicative, overlapping, inconsistent
or out of date.
2)Requires state agencies to hold public hearings, notice on the
Internet and accept public comment, as specified.
3)Requires state agencies to notify the appropriate policy and
fiscal committees of the Legislature of the proposed revisions
to regulations.
4)Requires state agencies to report to the Governor and the
Legislature the number and content of the regulations identified
as duplicative, overlapping, inconsistent or out of date.
5)Requires specified agencies to identify any existing regulations
of a department, board, or other unit within that agency that
are duplicative, overlapping or inconsistent with regulations of
other departments, boards or units within that agency.
AB 12
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6)Requires the provisions of this bill remain in effect only until
January 1, 2019, unless later statute is enacted that deletes or
extends that date.
EXISTING LAW:
1)Establishes, under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), basic
minimum procedural requirements for the adoption, amendment, or
repeal of administrative regulations.
2)Permits an agency, subject to the approval of the Office of
Administrative Law (OAL), to add to, revise or delete text
published in the California Code of Regulations (CCR) without
complying with the rulemaking procedures specified in the APA
only if the change does not materially alter any requirement,
right, responsibility, condition, prescription or other
regulatory element of any CCR provision.
FISCAL EFFECT: According to the Assembly Appropriations
Committee:
1)Annual costs (for two years) to the OAL of approximately
$695,000 (General Fund) for seven additional positions (five
attorneys, one legal analyst, and one office technician) and
additional rent and supplies, to accommodate the additional
workload within the two-year timeframe.
2)One-time costs of approximately $50,000 (General Fund) to OAL
for office equipment associated with the additional staff.
3)Unknown, but potentially significant costs to state agencies to
review and revise, as necessary, all existing regulations.
Departments with a large number of regulations may require
additional staff, managerial oversight, and administrative
AB 12
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support to accommodate the increased workload, public hearings,
and reporting requirements. There are currently over 200 state
agencies and departments with nearly 53,000 active regulations.
COMMENTS: In October of 2011, the Little Hoover Commission (LHC)
published a report titled, Better Regulation: Improving
California's Rulemaking Process. The LHC included several
recommendations for improving the state's rulemaking process,
including that the state should establish a look-back mechanism to
determine if regulations are still needed and whether or not they
work.
The author's approach to this "look-back mechanism" is to create a
two-year window within which agencies, and the departments, boards
and other units within them, must review all regulations that
pertain to the mission and programs under their statutory
authority. Upon completion of this review, the identified
regulations that are deemed to be duplicative, overlapping,
inconsistent or out of date may be repealed using the existing
processes already provided in the APA. This bill also allows for
public hearings and comment and requires regulatory changes be
reported to the Legislature and the Governor.
The provisions of this bill sunset on January 1, 2019, making the
regulatory review, as outlined in this bill, a one-time
application. Under current law, any state agency may review,
adopt, amend or repeal any regulation within its statutory
authority at any time. The OAL reports that as of December 26,
2014, (Register 2014, No. 52) the number of regulations adopted
totaled 67,176. Of those, state agencies had repealed 14,319,
leaving 52,857 regulations still active. This represents a repeal
rate of just over 21%.
AB 12
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Whether this 21% regulatory repeal rate is robust enough remains a
question. Both the LHC and the author believe more needs to be
done. The author states, "?numerous economists and business
leaders agree that one of the greatest obstacles to California job
growth is the 'thicket' of government regulations that constrain
business owners." The author's bill recognizes that state
agencies "may" review their regulatory framework at any time, but
specifies that state agencies "shall" review their regulatory
framework within the two-year timeframe as provided.
Finally, this bill contains language stating it is not meant to
weaken or undermine established statute, or to affect the
authority state agencies have to promulgate regulations. A
January 1, 2019, sunset date will ensure no long-term changes to
current APA requirements.
Analysis Prepared by:
William Herms / A. & A.R. / (916) 319-3600 FN:
0000627