Legislature(2017 - 2018)BUTROVICH 205
04/03/2018 03:30 PM Senate STATE AFFAIRS
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| Audio | Topic |
|---|---|
| Start | |
| SB118 | |
| HB96 | |
| HB168 | |
| HCR10 | |
| HB20 | |
| Adjourn |
* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
| *+ | SB 118 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| + | HB 96 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| + | HB 168 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| + | HCR 10 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| + | HB 20 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| + | HB 152 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| + | TELECONFERENCED |
HB 168-REPEAL ADMIN. REG. REVIEW COMMITTEE
4:28:45 PM
CHAIR MEYER announced the consideration of HB 168.
4:29:22 PM
REPRESENTATIVE MIKE CHENAULT, Alaska State Legislature, Juneau,
Alaska, sponsor of HB 168, provided an overview as follows:
House Bill 168 repeals that statutes pertaining to the
Administrative Regulation Review Committee (ARRC).
According to an analysis that was provided by
Legislative Research, the ARRC has not overturned any
regulations as a result of these committee hearings.
Although AS 24.20.445 provides that the committee can
suspend regulations for certain amount of time, the
Alaska Supreme Court found in a 1980 case that the
Legislature has no implied power to veto agency
regulations by informal legislative action and such
action would violate Article 2 of the state
constitution. The actions that are available for the
ARRC are to introduce legislation to supersede or to
nullify regulations; however, Legislative Research was
not able to find any effort to do so from 2000 to the
present.
REPRESENTATIVE CHENAULT summarized as follows:
What we are doing is trying to get rid of a committee
that we see no real value in. As I stated, it hasn't
introduced any legislation committee-wise on a number
of years, even though they have had a number of
meetings, no legislation has been introduced. Also,
you have before you House Concurrent Resolution 10
which would allow the jurisdiction of standing
committees to oversee the purposed or adopted
regulations to replace regulation oversite that is
currently under ARRC.
CHAIR MEYER asked that Mr. Wright highlight the bill's sectional
analysis.
4:32:23 PM
TOM WRIGHT, Staff, Representative Chenault, Alaska State
Legislature, explained that there were four pages that repealed
23 sections and the main section, section 3, deletes the
regulations for the ARRC as follows:
Review of administrative regulations by standing
committees of the Legislature and it allows a standing
committee of jurisdiction consistent with the
Legislature's Uniform Rules and that's why HCR 10 is
in front of you, to review or purposed or adopted
regulation an amendment of a regulation or a repeal of
a regulation, and it repeals language stating before
the date the regulation scheduled by a department or
agency to be adopted, amended or repealed.
He summarized that the rest of the sections were conforming, any
reference to the ARRC were deleted.
CHAIR MEYER said he believed that the Legislature has not
budgeted for ARRC for some time.
REPRESENTATIVE CHENAULT replied that ARRC was not funded last
year and confirmed that there was no money in the budget for the
present year.
CHAIR MEYER commented that when ARRC was first started that the
intent was good. He opined that as regulations get written that
sometimes the result was not the bill's intention. He asserted
that having oversite over regulations was important but noted
that HB 168 purposes that standing committees would have
jurisdiction.
4:34:33 PM
SENATOR GIESSEL disclosed that she served on ARRC for four year.
She confirmed that the committee never repealed any regulation.
She noted one incident where ARRC received a lot of public
comment that resulted in the committee convincing a department
not to put out a certain regulation package; however, she
conceded that the same process could have been done by a
legislator at any time. She pointed out that ARRC had a
substantial budget appropriation with a designated staff member
who had to follow all the regulation packages that came out. She
concurred that eliminating ARRC would save money and the action
was positive.
MR. WRIGHT recounted receiving notice from Legislative Legal on
problematic regulations when he served in the speaker's office.
He noted that he passed the notices on to ARRC and disclosed
that he did not remember any hearings based on the notices that
he forwarded. He pointed out that when a somewhat ominous
regulation is enacted that the public will let legislators know
that they do not like it and referenced a recent airplane tax
that the administration decided not to go forward with. He
concurred with Senator Giessel that individual legislators have
the right to introduce legislation to repeal a regulation.
4:36:36 PM
SENATOR GIESSEL disclosed that she has introduction two bills
during the current session that will repeal regulations. She
agreed with Mr. Wright that legislators can certainly carry
legislation to repeal regulations.
REPRESENTATIVE CHENAULT disclosed that his office has also
introduced legislation over the years to repeal statutes that no
longer worked.
CHAIR MEYER asked to confirm that one of Representative
Chenault's bills repealed branding.
REPRESENTATIVE CHENAULT answered yes.
CHAIR MEYER asked how long ARRC has been in existence.
MR. WRIGHT stated that ARRC was created in 2003-2004.
REPRESENTATIVE CHENAULT informed that ARRC has been in effect
since the early 1980s. He noted that his office had Legislative
Research go back to 2003, the Twenty-third Legislature. He
disclosed that ARRC had 30 meetings since 2003 and noted that 15
meetings occurred in 2013-2014 during the Twenty-eighth
Legislature, but the average year since 2003 had between 2 to 5
meetings.
4:38:23 PM
CHAIR MEYER closed public testimony.
4:38:52 PM
SENATOR GIESSEL moved to report HB 168, version 30-LS0682\A from
committee with individual recommendations and attached zero
fiscal note.
4:39:09 PM
CHAIR MEYER announced that there being no objection, the motion
carried.
4:39:13 PM
At ease.