BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 410
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Date of Hearing: May 4, 2011
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Felipe Fuentes, Chair
AB 410 (Swanson) - As Introduced: February 14, 2011
Policy Committee: Business and
Professions Vote: 9 - 0
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
No Reimbursable:
SUMMARY
This bill requires any agency submitting a notice of proposed
adoption, amendment, or repeal of regulations to the Office of
Administrative Law (OAL) to provide a narrative description of
proposed regulations to persons with visual disabilities upon
request. In addition, the bill requires that the requestor be
provided with an extended comment period.
FISCAL EFFECT
1)Potential workload increase likely in excess of several
hundred thousand dollars if narrative descriptions are
requested on 20% of the proposed regulations or on very large
regulations packages.
The governor's 2011-12 proposed budget includes more than $3
million and 21 personnel, including 14 attorneys, for the
Office of Administrative Law (OAL) to review all proposed
state regulations, conduct regulations training, and
investigations. The bulk of their workload is devoted to
reviewing regulations.
OAL receives 600-800 regulation packages in a typical calendar
year. In 2008, the office received approximately 700
regulation packages and the length varied from 1 page of text
to 399 pages of text. This legislation would require an
addition to the text itself that would duplicate the text with
descriptive wording as to what is being deleted or added. The
addition of a second version of the text would significantly
increase the amount of time OAL spends reviewing regulatory
text, because they would have to ensure that the descriptive
AB 410
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text matches the actual regulation text. Given the workload,
if narrative descriptions are required on 20% of the
regulations packages or on large regulations packages, it
could increase GF costs by several hundred thousand dollars
2)Unknown costs, potentially in excess of $100,000 cumulatively,
for departments developing regulations to create a narrative
of the changes in addition to the original regulations
package.
COMMENTS
1)Purpose . According to the author's office, "Currently, when a
�state] agency submits regulatory changes, they are in a
format that is understood only by a person with vision.
Software that reads for the visually impaired cannot
distinguish underline and strike out �text], which makes it
impossible for them to understand the regulatory changes.
Instead, this law would require each agency to identify each
addition to or deletion from CCR by specific reference to
subdivision, paragraph, subparagraph, clause, or subclause and
�include] a narrative �description] of the items being added,
deleted, or amended. This will make it possible for someone
with visual impairment to understand the changes in a manner
that allows for accurate translation by reading software."
2)Related Legislation . This bill is a narrower version of AB
1787 (Swanson) from last year. In that bill, a narrative
description was required for all proposed regulations. That
bill was held on this committee's suspense file.
Analysis Prepared by : Julie Salley-Gray / APPR. / (916)
319-2081