Bill creates high rulemaking hurdles, rejects consideration of rules' potential benefits
NC lawmakers threw the state's agencies and rulemaking bodies into chaos by overriding Gov. Josh Stein's veto of House Bill 402, Limit Rules with Substantial Financial Costs, on Tuesday, July 29.
H402 calls for unrealistic, unnecessary hurdles for virtually any rule being considered for agency action. It would hamstring our state agencies' work to efficiently create, amend, and update all regulations, including those that protect our environment and our communities.
The rulemaking process will now call for a fiscal impact analysis that ignores a rule's greater public benefits – even if they outweigh its drawbacks. Worse, depending on that analysis, each rule requires a supermajority or unanimous vote of administrative board members, a higher threshold than the legislature holds itself to for any vote, including veto overrides.
Statement from Chris Herndon, Chapter Director, NC Sierra Club:
House and Senate members have further bogged down their ability to fulfill the duties they were elected to perform by requiring heavy – and unnecessary – legislative involvement in the rulemaking process. They've rejected the logical need to consider proposed rules' benefits to the constituents they represent, focusing only on fiscal drawbacks. They have also set up an unconstitutional violation of the separation of powers between government branches, which we hope the courts will swiftly overturn.