This is a good idea:
The N.C. House is considering a bill that would mandate an official review of every state rule with an eye toward eliminating redundant or burdensome regulations....Faster, please.The bill would require a review of the state's more than 22,500 administrative rules over the next four years with a periodic review every 10 years. The Department of Health and Human Services review, if the bill is passed, would be finished by 2016, followed by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources in 2017. All of the rules would be reviewed by 2019.
If I might suggest a...minor...tweak to a bill in a State in which I'm not even resident (it would serve as a model for the Federal Congress, also)....
ReplyDeleteEach regulatory rule should have an automatic expiration date after, say, three years (or some short odd number to mitigate election cycle influences), renewable in five-year increments only after debate and positive voting up in the legislature. No vote, or no effort at all, and the rule expires.
Set a deadline for the review--make it a three-month deadline for each agency to review its own rules and make an individual case for each's continuance (no lumping together). No case offered, and the rule is rescinded. Set a three-month deadline for completing debate on each defended rule. No debate, or the debate isn't complete, and the rule is rescinded. Set a one-week deadline for completing a vote on each of the rules for which debate is complete (again, one rule, one vote--no lumping together). Rules not voted on are rescinded--a rule must be voted up in order to survive. This keeps the process contained withing a single legislative session--no changing minds later, no expiry and start-over due to new legislature elected.
This also puts a premium on both the agency(s) and the legislature prioritizing their needs and wants. Lower priority means the rule wasn't necessary.
Eric Hines