HB 168-REPEAL ADMIN. REG. REVIEW COMMITTEE HCR 10-UNIFORM RULES: REGULATION REVIEW  3:38:58 PM CHAIR KREISS-TOMKINS announced that the next two orders of business would be HOUSE BILL NO. 168, "An Act relating to regulation notice and review by the legislature; and relating to the Administrative Regulation Review Committee." and HOUSE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION NO. 10, Proposing an amendment to the Uniform Rules of the Alaska State Legislature relating to the jurisdiction of standing committees. 3:39:14 PM REPRESENTATIVE MIKE CHENAULT, Alaska State Legislature, as prime sponsor of HB 168, paraphrased from the sponsor statement, which read as follows [original punctuation provided]: The purpose of House Bill 168 is to repeal the statutes pertaining to the Administrative Regulation Review Committee. According to the analysis provided by Legislative Research, included in your packets, the ARRC [Administrative Regulation Review Committee] 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 a "certain time period," the Alaska Supreme Court found in a 1980 case [State v. ALIVE Voluntary], that the Legislature has no implied power to veto agency regulations by informal legislative action and such actions would violate Article II of the state Constitution. The actions available to the ARRC are to introduce legislation to supersede or nullify regulations. However, Legislative Research was not able to find any effort to do so from 2003 to the present. REPRESENTATIVE CHENAULT relayed that HCR 10 would allow the jurisdiction of standing committees to oversee proposed and adopted regulations to replace regulation oversight that is currently under the jurisdiction of ARRC. 3:41:36 PM REPRESENTATIVE WOOL referred to page 1 of the document, entitled "Administrative Regulation Review," prepared by Legislative Research Services and included in the committee packet, and noted the 15 ARRC meetings during one legislature. REPRESENTATIVE CHENAULT suggested that it may have been one of the few periods of time ARRC met on a regular basis. He mentioned that the 15 meetings occurred during the Twenty-Eighth Alaska State Legislature, 2013-2014, and Representative [Lora] Reinbold was committee chair. 3:42:45 PM REPRESENTATIVE KNOPP asked if HCR 10 would repeal ARRC and give jurisdiction back to the standing committees to review a regulation and propose legislation to amend or repeal it. 3:43:35 PM TOM WRIGHT, Staff, Representative Mike Chenault, Alaska State Legislature, on behalf of Representative Chenault, prime sponsor of HB 168 and HCR 10, responded, "Yes, that is correct." He relayed that standing committees have jurisdiction now through [Uniform Rule} regulations and can propose any changes they see fit. The proposed legislation would repeal the language in Alaska Statutes that refers to ARRC and clarify that the standing committees can undertake regulation review if they so choose. 3:44:13 PM REPRESENTATIVE BIRCH stated that his understanding of the Alaska Supreme Court case is that the legislature was dissatisfied with the way the regulations were written for statutes that were adopted during a specific administration. The legislature is fully empowered to subsequently rewrite the statute to realign the regulatory interpretation. He summarized by saying that it is not necessary to have a review committee, because a regulation can be "fixed". REPRESENTATIVE CHENAULT agreed and said whether it is by a review committee or by a standing committee, the only way a regulation can be changed is through legislation; it can be accomplished by the committee or an individual. REPRESENTATIVE BIRCH suggested that there is a corresponding federal process whereby regulations can be revised after Congress has adopted [a law]. He asked whether there is any opposition to the proposed legislation and resolution. REPRESENTATIVE CHENAULT replied that he knows of no opposition and added that funding for regulation review is not in this year's budget. CHAIR KREISS-TOMKINS commented that Representative Birch may have been referring to the Congressional Review Act (CRA) [1996]. 3:46:17 PM REPRESENTATIVE LEDOUX inquired as to the last time ARRC had the funds to hire an attorney to review the myriad of regulations and did so. REPRESENTATIVE CHENAULT stated that his guess is that it occurred in the Twenty-Ninth Alaska State Legislature, 2015- 2016, and the committee chair at that time was [former] Senator Lesil McGuire. 3:47:00 PM CHAIR KREISS-TOMKINS announced that HB 168 and HCR 10 would be held over.