Administrative Process Act; timing for filing certain regulations. (HB1939)
Introduced By
Del. Albert Pollard (D-Lively)
Progress
✓ |
Introduced |
✓ |
Passed Committee |
✓ |
Passed House |
✓ |
Passed Senate |
✓ |
Signed by Governor |
☐ |
Became Law |
Description
Regulations promulgated when mandated by statute; requirements. Requires agencies to respond to legislation passed by the General Assembly by filing a Notice of Intended Regulatory Action within 60 days of the effective date of such action. Further, the agency is required to have such regulations formally and finally approved and filed with and published in the Registrar within 365 days. A notice requirement is provided for agencies unable to comply. The bill also modifies the requirement for the Governor's executive order on regulations to include procedures to ensure that regulations are promulgated within the 365-day time frame in order to meet the legislative objective. The bill contains technical amendments. Read the Bill »
Outcome
History
| Date | Action |
|---|---|
| 01/11/2011 | Committee |
| 01/11/2011 | Prefiled and ordered printed; offered 01/12/11 11103141D |
| 01/11/2011 | Referred to Committee on General Laws |
| 01/17/2011 | Assigned GL sub: #4 Professions/Occupations and Administrative Process |
| 01/18/2011 | Impact statement from DPB (HB1939) |
| 01/21/2011 | Impact statement from DPB (HB1939) |
| 01/25/2011 | Impact statement from DPB (HB1939) |
| 02/01/2011 | Subcommittee recommends reporting with amendment(s) (8-Y 0-N) |
| 02/03/2011 | Reported from General Laws with substitute (21-Y 0-N) (see vote tally) |
| 02/03/2011 | Committee substitute printed 11104912D-H1 |
| 02/06/2011 | Read first time |
| 02/07/2011 | Read second time |
| 02/07/2011 | Committee substitute agreed to 11104912D-H1 |
| 02/07/2011 | Engrossed by House - committee substitute HB1939H1 |
| 02/07/2011 | Impact statement from DPB (HB1939H1) |
| 02/08/2011 | Read third time and passed House BLOCK VOTE (99-Y 0-N) |
| 02/08/2011 | VOTE: BLOCK VOTE PASSAGE (99-Y 0-N) (see vote tally) |
| 02/09/2011 | Constitutional reading dispensed |
| 02/09/2011 | Referred to Committee on General Laws and Technology |
| 02/16/2011 | Reported from General Laws and Technology (15-Y 0-N) (see vote tally) |
| 02/18/2011 | Constitutional reading dispensed (40-Y 0-N) (see vote tally) |
| 02/21/2011 | Read third time |
| 02/21/2011 | Passed Senate (40-Y 0-N) (see vote tally) |
| 02/25/2011 | Enrolled |
| 02/25/2011 | Bill text as passed House and Senate (HB1939ER) |
| 02/25/2011 | Impact statement from DPB (HB1939ER) |
| 02/26/2011 | Signed by Speaker |
| 02/28/2011 | Signed by President |
| 03/24/2011 | G Approved by Governor-Chapter 464 (effective 7/1/11) |
| 03/24/2011 | G Acts of Assembly Chapter text (CHAP0464) |
Comments
I appreciate what this bill is trying to do. The regulatory process is so balled-up in the late 90's, the Administrative Law Advisory Committee to the Code Commission found that it takes nearly 2 years on average to promulgate a regulation through the standard process. Back in the early 90's when JLARC studied the regulatory process, it took an about 13 months on average.
This is fine if you assume that all regulations are bad. The fact is that the bulk of regulations are non-controversial -- go through the entire process with little to no adverse comment. If you look at the time spent during the APA process, much of it is spent waiting for DPB's economic impact analysis and for the Governor's office review. You can assume the few regulations are going through either DPB or the Governor's office from January through March or April given that the process stops during legislative session. This time is not within the agency's control.
If Del. Pollard wants to reduce the average length of the regulatory process, he could provide that if the EIA or Gov's review is not completed in a time specified by statute, the regulation will proceed to the next step.
See here for the most recent study of rulemaking time frames:
http://codecommission.dls.virginia.gov/alac/archives.htm
It's in 2001.
From what I've seen, the net result of increasing the length and complexity of the regulatory process has been that more issues and programs are required to issue emergency regs or exempt from the APA altogether. The end result is a trend to more and more policy-making being pushed into formats that aren't subject to notice and comment.