One of the bills that could be taken up in the August session of the General Assembly is Senate Bill 16, which passed both chambers earlier this year and is in conference.

Section 3 of that bill would make a key change to the current process of sunset with periodic review. Right now, rules under review fall in one of three categories:

  • “Unnecessary.” A rule the agency no longer finds necessary. It gets repealed.
  • “Necessary with substantive public interest.” A rule the agency considers necessary and has attracted public comment within the past two years. It must be readopted as if it is a new rule.
  • “Necessary without substantive public interest.” A rule the agency considers necessary and hasn’t attracted public comment. It is automatically re-upped.

Here is how those categories have sussed out so far:

The bill would get rid of the “necessary without substantive public interest” category (i.e., the biggest one, shown in blue in the pie chart). This means it would subject all “necessary” state rules to periodic review. (The “unnecessary” ones would still sunset immediately.)

The end result would be more scrutiny of agency rules over time.

Read my report for more details.