BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    �



                                                                  AB 535
                                                                  Page  1

          Date of Hearing:   May 18, 2011

                        ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
                                Felipe Fuentes, Chair

                AB 535 (Morrell) - As Introduced:  February 16, 2011 

          Policy Committee:                              Business and 
          Professions  Vote:                            7 - 1 

          Urgency:     No                   State Mandated Local Program: 
          No     Reimbursable:              

           SUMMARY  

          This bill requires state agencies that promulgate regulations to 
          review and report on those regulations five years after 
          adoption. Specifically, this bill: 

          1)Requires state agencies to review and report specific 
            information to the Office of Administrative Law (OAL) five 
            years after a regulation has been adopted. 

          2)Requires agencies to maintain an on-going record of all 
            written criticisms of a regulation, including letters, 
            memoranda, reports, and written allegations made in litigation 
            or administrative proceedings.

          3)Requires OAL to post those reports on its website.

          4)Requires the report to include:
             a)   General and specific statutes authorizing the 
               regulation.
             b)   Objective of the regulation.
             c)   Effectiveness of the regulation.
             d)   Consistency of the regulation with state and federal 
               statutes.
             e)   Agency enforcement policy.
             f)   Agency view regarding current wisdom of the regulation.
             g)   Clarity and understandability of the regulation.
             h)   A summary of written criticisms of the regulation. 
             i)   Estimated economic, small business and consumer impact 
               of the regulation as compared to the initial economic 
               impact statement.
             j)   Course of action the agency proposes to take regarding 








                                                                  AB 535
                                                                  Page  2

               each regulation if the agency determines it is necessary to 
               amend or appeal the existing rule. 

           FISCAL EFFECT  

          1)Depending on the number of regulations required to be reviewed 
            each year and the complexity of those regulations, the costs 
            would likely range between $50,000 and $300,000 per agency.  
            200 agencies in the state promulgate regulations. Therefore, 
            annual costs could easily exceed $10 million. 

          2)Costs for OAL to receive those reports and post them on their 
            website for an undetermined amount of time could exceed 
            $20,000 due to the fact that OAL is charged by their website 
            vendor based on the volume of information posted. 

           COMMENTS 

           1)Purpose  . The author claims that businesses have "fled" our 
            state partly because of the state's regulations. This bill is 
            intended to address that issue by requiring departments to 
            assess the ultimate economic impacts of regulations by 
            requiring departments to review the impact five years after a 
            regulation has been adopted. 

           2)Related Legislation  . Over the last two years, dozens of bills 
            have been introduced in the Legislature that attempt to 
            change, streamline, or improve the regulations process. Among 
            the bills pending in the Assembly are AB 127 (Logue), AB 213 
            (Silva), AB 273 (Valadao), AB 338 (Wagner), AB 410 (Swanson), 
            AB 425 (Nestande), AB 429 (Knight), AB 530 (Smyth), AB 586 
            (Garrick), AB 632 (Wagner), AB 691 (Perea), AB 1213 (Nielsen), 
            and AB 1322 (Bradford). 


           Analysis Prepared by  :    Julie Salley-Gray / APPR. / (916) 
          319-2081