Committee reviews wide-ranging recodification of Administrative Procedures Act

The House Executive Departments and Administration Committee spent its first hour on a detailed presentation of House Bill 12 61, a recodification of the Administrative Procedures Act intended to align statutory text with how agencies actually process rulemaking. Douglas Osterhau, director of the Division of Administrative Rules at the Office of Legislative Services, told the committee the bill is mostly a reorganization and clarification of existing requirements rather than a change in substantive standards.

Supporters said the bill moves filing responsibility to the Division of Administrative Rules and formally recognizes decisions the division already makes, such as authority to grant procedural waivers after consulting JELCAR leadership. Osterhau described numerous edits that remove redundancy, clarify when rulemaking begins, and standardize objection grounds in the statute so committee letters and objections are more precise.

Members asked specific questions about the bill’s practical effects. Topics included what party status confers in a rulemaking (the right to file and receive documents), whether agencies could refuse to publish vulgar or irrelevant written testimony, and how the committee should be notified when agencies promulgate rules because of statutory changes. The director said the bill mostly reflects current practice; one notable substantive change replaces the vague phrase “legislative intent” with specific grounds for objection (for example, “contrary to statute or federal regulation” or “substantial economic impact not recognized in the fiscal impact statement”).

The bill also adds an expedited process for form revisions tied to statutory fee or fine changes, intended to shorten the timeline for some technical fee updates from months to weeks and give agencies faster ability to align forms with recent statutory changes. Members and staff discussed how that procedure would preserve LBA and JELCAR oversight.

No final committee vote on HB 12 61 was taken in this session; members asked staff to draft language clarifying the role of committee reports and to circulate proposed amendments. Chair and members agreed further drafting is necessary before the committee acts. The committee then moved on to several other work-session items on its agenda.

What happens next: committee members asked staff to draft a focused amendment addressing committee-report linkage and to circulate it ahead of the committee’s next meeting.