BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 1982
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Date of Hearing: May 16, 2012
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Felipe Fuentes, Chair
AB 1982 (Gorrell and Wagner) - As Amended: April 18, 2012
Policy Committee: Business and
Professions Vote: 6 - 2
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
No Reimbursable:
SUMMARY
This bill requires the Office of Administrative Law (OAL) to
submit all major regulations packages to the Legislature for
review. Specifically, this bill:
1)Changes the effective date of regulations from 30 days to 90
days.
2)Requires the OAL submit a copy of all major regulations ($50
million or more in economic impact) submitted to the Secretary
of State (SOS) to each house of the Legislature for review.
3)States that a regulation shall become effective after 90 days,
rather than 30 days, unless the Legislature passes a statute
to override the regulation.
FISCAL EFFECT
1)OAL is currently under contract with Thomson West, the
publisher of the California Code of Regulations (CCR). This
legislation would require OAL to renegotiate that contract.
Thomson West currently pays California $400,000 per year, plus
royalties to publish the CCR. California's relationship is
fairly unique in that many states pay publishers to publish
their regulations. Should the 90 day effective date cause the
publishing of the regulations to be more complicated, Thomson
West may offer less for the rights to the regulations, thus
resulting in a loss of revenue to the state.
2)Minor one-time programming costs of approximately $10,000 for
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OAL to update its database to reflect the new 90 day effective
date.
3)Unknown, but likely significant costs for the OAL if the
90-day delay in regulations causes more departments to use the
emergency regulations process.
4)There will likely be approximately 20 major regulations
packages per year and many regulations packages exceed several
hundred pages. Should the Legislature choose to review the
major regulations packages, it is likely that workload
requirements for the policy committees would increase
significantly. In addition, it is likely that the workload
for the Legislative Analyst's Office, Legislative Counsel, and
the Chief Clerk's Office would also increase.
COMMENTS
1)Rationale . The intent of this legislation is to increase
transparency in the regulations process by requiring the
Legislature to review all major regulations proposals.
According to the authors, some major regulations are too
costly, ineffective, time consuming, and disproportionate to
their perceived benefit. The authors reference a Little
Hoover Commission report, issed on October 25, 2011, on the
issue of state regulations ( Better Regulation: Improving
California's Rulemaking Process ). According to the report,
the state's economy would benefit from better, more effective
regulation and reduced uncertainty. One of the concerns
expressed in the report is the lack of transparency and
accountability.
The authors argue that requiring that major regulations
(fiscal impact of $50 million or more) be sent to the
Legislature for review, provides the oversight and
transparency necessary for more effective regulation and a
better economic climate.
2)Background . The Administrative Procedures Act (APA) governs
the adoption of regulations by state agencies for purposes of
ensuring that they are clear, necessary, legally valid, and
available to the public. In seeking adoption of a proposed
regulation, state agencies must comply with procedural
requirements that include publishing the proposed regulation
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along with supporting statement of reasons; mailing and
publishing a notice of the proposed action 45 days before a
hearing or before the close of the public comment period; and,
submitting a final statement to OAL that summarizes and
responds to all objections, recommendations and proposed
alternatives that were raised during the public comment
period. The OAL is then required to approve or reject the
proposed regulation within 30 days.
OAL is responsible for reviewing administrative regulations
proposed by more than 200 state agencies for compliance with
the standards set forth in the APA, for transmitting these
regulations to SOS, and for publishing regulations in the
California Code of Regulations. Existing law requires OAL to
review all regulations for necessity and non-duplication, and
requires OAL to print a summary of all regulations filed with
SOS in the previous week in the California Regulatory Notice
Register.
On average, OAL reviews 700 regulations packages per year.
Those packages can be anywhere from 1 to 400 pages long. In
2011, over 5,000 different regulations sections were reviewed
by OAL.
3)Related Legislation . In 2010, AB 2466 (Smyth) would have
extended the effective date of regulations from 30 days to 90
days and would have required OAL submit all regulations
packages to the Legislature and require that the appropriate
legislative policy committees review those regulations. That
bill was held on this committee's Suspense File.
Analysis Prepared by : Julie Salley-Gray / APPR. / (916)
319-2081