Please consider the following as suggested
language for items (1) to (4) of the RRTF report that we will issue at the
end of our meetings.
(1) We recommend that the "process to
be used by agencies, the governor, and the legislature to identify and
prioritize rules and related laws and programs that will be subject to
legislative review" be as follows:
C
This process applies to the
rules subject to review under Minnesota Statutes,
section 14.3691, which states in pertinent part: "An entity
whose rules are scheduled for review under this section must report to
the governor and the appropriate committees of the
legislature . . . . The speaker of the house of
representatives and the senate committee on rules and administration
shall designate the appropriate committees to receive these reports.
The report must: (1) list any rules that the entity recommends for
repeal; (2) list and briefly describe the rationale for rules that the
entity believes should remain in effect; and (3) suggest any changes
in rules that would improve the agency's ability to meet the
regulatory objectives prescribed by the legislature, while reducing
any unnecessary burdens on regulated parties."
C
Agencies required to report on
their rules should report separately on each chapter of their rules.
For most rule chapters that should remain in effect, the report would
be a paragraph or two on the continuing viability of the rules
chapter. Where appropriate, this would list parts that need updating
and when this is anticipated. The report might be more in depth for
one or two chapters, but this would happen only if the program or
issues related to the rule chapters has taken a recent controversial
or problematic turn.
C The agency
report should comply with Minnesota Statutes, section 3.197,
which states: "A report to the legislature must contain, at the
beginning of the report, the cost of preparing the report, including
any costs incurred by another agency or another level of
government."
C
Legislative committees would identify and prioritize rules for review
after considering:
C
the agency reports;
C input
from the public; and
C
legislators’ experience and opinions.
C
Legislative committees would
then select for review only one main topic area per committee, except
in rare circumstances, where more than one topic area merits
legislative attention and scrutiny. In many cases, a topic area would
fit within one agency’s set of rules. In other cases, a topic area
could cut across several agencies when necessary to address the
regulatory issues of an industry that is affected by many agencies’
rules.
(2) We recommend that the "process by
which the legislature will review rules and related laws and programs
identified under clause (1)" be as follows:
C
The legislative committee would
review the rules, along with the underlying state statutes, related
federal statutes and rules, and the agency programs that implement the
statutes and rules.
C The
legislative committee would hold hearings to conduct the review and
would do so early in the legislative session. The committee would take
testimony from the agency or agencies, regulated parties, and any
other interested persons.
C The
legislative committee would consider recommendations on whether
continued regulation is needed, and if so, what can be done to improve
the effectiveness of the rules and reduce the burden of the rules
while still accomplishing the purposes of the rules.
(3) Our estimate of the "agency and
legislative time and resources required for review of rules and related
laws and programs under the processes recommended under clauses (1) and
(2)" is:
C We
estimate that the agency time to prepare the report under
item (1) to range from about 10 hours for agencies with very
few rules to 100 hours or more for agencies with many rules.
C We
estimate the legislator and legislative staff time to identify and
prioritize rules for review to range from 10 to 20 hours.
C We
estimate that review of a topic area would entail from one to three
legislative hearings, with the corresponding legislator, legislative
staff, and agency staff time.
(4) Our estimate of the "effect of
possible repeal of agency rules on the state budget and any loss of
benefits to citizens of the state resulting from such a repeal" is:
* Note: the requirement of item (4)
was relevant to an early version of ML2000, chapter 469, but is
not relevant to chapter 469, as passed. The Conference Committee
just did not delete item (4) in the rush at the end of the
Session.
Minnesota Legislature
