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Panel debates 'red tape' rollback bill; questions on agency capacity
Summary
Lawmakers discussed Senate Bill 28, a lieutenant governor-backed measure that would require regular agency reviews and impose new impact analyses aimed at reducing regulatory burdens on businesses; members asked whether agencies have the staffing or funding to carry out the work.
A committee heard testimony on Senate Bill 28 on a measure described by its presenter as the lieutenant governor’s “red tape rollback” bill, which would require periodic reviews of state agency rules and create new small-business and economic-impact analyses.
The bill would expand the state’s small-business definition in the measure from firms of 100 or fewer employees to firms of 300 or fewer, require a “small business impact analysis,” and create an economic impact threshold for larger rules described in committee as those expected to cost $3,000,000 or more and therefore subject to ratification by the General Assembly. The measure would also put agencies on a four-year cycle to review rules and determine whether they remain necessary and are the least burdensome means to achieve their purpose. The presenter told the committee “we’re ultimately incentivizing the deregulation in government” as the bill’s purpose.
Representative Evans asked whether a fiscal note accompanies the bill and whether the review process would impose new costs on agencies; the presenter replied there is no fiscal note and said the sponsor expects agencies to accomplish the work with existing staffing. Committee members pressed the point: Kim Williamson raised the Department of Banking and Finance as an example of an agency whose core mission is regulation and asked how the bill would affect such regulators.
Supporters framed the bill as a routine ‘‘spring cleaning’’ of rules and as a mechanism to lower compliance burdens on Georgia businesses. Critics and questioners sought explicit assurances about agency capacity and whether appropriations or state resources would be needed to perform the analyses and periodic reviews. The presenter said the bill has been discussed with agencies and that none has raised an insurmountable objection but acknowledged the process could be tweaked if implementation proves difficult.
No formal vote on Senate Bill 28 was recorded in the committee transcript.
The bill’s text, threshold amounts and definitions in committee were discussed as written in bill drafts; if enacted, the bill would change how agencies evaluate and retain rules but would not itself appropriate new funding, according to the discussion recorded in committee.
