Regulations: economic and technical information.

The Administrative Procedure Act governs the procedure for the adoption, amendment, or repeal of regulations by state agencies and for the review of those regulatory actions by the Office of Administrative Law. The act requires an agency, as part of the regulatory adoption process, to assess the potential for adverse economic impact on California business enterprises and individuals, as specified. The act requires an agency that seeks to adopt, amend, or repeal a regulation to release a notice of proposed action with prescribed information, including specified information regarding adverse economic impacts. The act requires an agency to file with the office, when it files the notice of proposed action, an initial statement of reasons that includes, among other things, a description of reasonable alternatives to the proposed regulation and the agency's reason for rejecting the alternatives, as specified. This bill would require the initial statement of reasons to also identify each document, including, but not limited to, technical, theoretical, and empirical studies, reports, or similar documents, upon which the agency relied in rejecting each reasonable alternative. The bill would prohibit an agency from rejecting a reasonable alternative unless the statement of reasons includes at least one of these documents. The bill would also repeal a provision that authorizes the agency to avoid having to artificially construct alternatives, describe unreasonable alternatives, or justify why it did not describe alternatives. The bill would require an agency to determine whether a proposed regulation will have a significant adverse economic impact by completing an economic impact statement, using a form developed by the Department of Finance, as specified. The bill would require the agency to post the economic impact statement, including specified supporting information, on the agency's Internet Web site and include it as part of the rulemaking file, as specified. The bill would require that the notice of proposed action include a notice that describes how the public may obtain access to the economic impact statement, including the supporting information, on the agency Internet Web site or in hard copy, as specified.