THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, March 1, 1995 TAG: 9503010456
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY BETTY MITCHELL GRAY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RALEIGH LENGTH: Medium: 94 lines
Lobbyists for the state's businesses and industries told a House committee Tuesday that regulatory-reform measures would lead to a more careful review of proposed rules before they become law.
But the lobbyist for two state environmental groups said the measures before the legislature could mean unnecessary delays in needed environmental regulations.
One of the advocates, Patricia Pleasants, lobbyist for the National Federation of Independent Business, told a judiciary committee that ``this does seem to be one of the few ways to make the agencies look at rules more carefully.''
Pleasants was one of five lobbyists representing the N.C. Homebuilders Association, the N.C. Citizens for Business and Industry, and other business and industrial groups that supported two bills calling for changes in the way state panels adopt rules controlling such things as fishing practices, coastal development, sewage treatment and utilities rates.
Typically, the General Assembly adopts fewer than 800 new laws each year. State panels adopt as many as 4,000 administrative rules and regulations that have the effect of law on a wide range of activities such as commercial and sports fishing, home construction and sewage disposal. The regulatory-reform bills, sponsored by Rep. E. David Redwine, D-Brunswick County, would make the following changes in the procedures used by panels such as the state Marine Fisheries Commission and the Coastal Resources Commission:
Require that the Office of State Budget and Management review the economic effects of any proposed rule that would have more than a $5 million effect on anyone. Now, various commissions make such a review informally as part of their general debate over new rules.
Require agencies to give the public 60 days' notice when a proposed rule is being considered. This notification would be in addition to current requirements to publish the text of proposed rules before they are considered by a rule-making panel.
Give a 16-member panel of legislators oversight on all administrative rules and delay implementation of those rules until they are approved by the General Assembly. Now, a panel decides whether rules approved by boards and commissions are constitutional. No formal legislative approval is required before the rules become law.Agencies and rule-making panels would evaluate the cumulative effects of enacting new rules, a task now done informally by some panels during debate of new rules.
The bills would let some agencies retain the authority to adopt temporary rules to address issues such as serious public health or safety threats, recent changes in federal or state authority and court orders.
The bills are a compilation of four measures covering the same issues that were recommended to the General Assembly by a commission after a yearlong study of the state's procedure for adopting administrative rules.
Michael Carpenter, lobbyist for the N.C. Home Builders Association, said the package of regulatory reforms would give the public more time to become involved in the process and would lead to more careful scrutiny of proposed rules by state panels.
But Bill Holman, the lobbyist for the Conservation Council of North Carolina and the state Sierra Club, said that requring legislative approval of new rules would add an unneeded layer of bureaucracy to the process.
``The legislature already has the power to step in where it feels an agency has gone too far,'' he said.
Some legislative observers predicted that a House judiciary committee will approve the two measures.
That means opponents of some of the measures - which include some of the state's top fisheries and coastal regulators - will have to take their case to the state Senate when that chamber begins to debate the proposals.
Meanwhile, the state's top fisheries regulator said Tuesday that increased legislative oversight would mean a lengthy delay in needed fisheries rules, and could hurt the state's coastal fish populations.
Some of the state's top coastal and fisheries regulators say some of the proposals would simply codify things state panels and commissions are already doing. But, they said, they will fight a proposal by state legislators giving the General Assembly the power to review rules and before they become law.
``The process is already cumbersome and this would add at least one calendar year to that process,'' said Robert V. Lucas, chairman of the state Marine Fisheries Commission. By requiring legislative approval of administrative rules, state lawmakers ``really make it more difficult to be able to manage the fisheries.''
Lucas said that if the General Assembly wants oversight of the state's policy-making boards and commissions, it should abolish those commissions and take the responsibility itself.
The chairmen of two other panels that oversee coastal issues - the Coastal Resources Commission and the Environmental Management Commission - also are on record as opposing legislative approval of new rules.
Some legislators, such as Senate leader Marc Basnight, D-Dare, have called for a moratorium on administrative rules, similar to the one in place for the Marine Fisheries Commission, while state lawmakers study the administrative rule-making procedure. by CNB