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Rules Task Force

                             

Date: December 12, 2000
To: Rules Reform Task Force Members
From: Dave Orren, Task Force Member and Rules Coordinator for the Minnesota Department of Health
Phone: 651-282-6310
Subject: Suggestions for Task Force Recommendations on Legislative Review of State Agency Rules and Related Laws and Programs 

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.

 

 

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