Michigan Legislature Moves for Greater Oversight on Administrative Rules
In a significant move aimed at enhancing legislative control, the Michigan House of Representatives has advanced a set of bills designed to revise how state departments establish administrative rules. These changes could potentially impact areas such as election procedures and agricultural storage regulations.
Currently, any proposed adjustments to administrative rules must pass through the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules (JCAR) to become effective. If the committee does not reject the proposed changes within a specific timeframe, they proceed automatically.
State Representative Luke Meerman, representing Coopersville and a cosponsor of the legislative package, argues that the existing system lacks adequate oversight. “The department that never has anybody looking over its shoulder is the department that just continues to grow,” Meerman remarked following the House session.
The proposed legislation would introduce a categorization of rules into major and nonmajor categories. Major rules, characterized by a projected annual economic impact exceeding a million dollars, would require endorsement by the Legislature through a concurrent resolution. Conversely, nonmajor rules would need approval from a newly proposed Joint Committee on Regulatory Oversight and Administrative Review.
While supporters of the bills assert that committee decisions would be anchored in existing state laws, opposition chiefly comes from Democrats. State Representative Carrie Rheingans from Ann Arbor expressed concerns over legislators making politically charged decisions without technical expertise. “I understand people think there might be too much administration and red tape and stuff, but out of 110 of us in here, I don’t know a single person who’s a technical expert in wastewater runoff from a farm,” she stated.
In addition to these measures, the House approved a bill aimed at streamlining how reports from various state agencies are presented to the Legislature. Presently, each department decides its reporting method, which can result in challenges for those seeking information.
State Representative Joseph Aragona from Clinton Township supports this initiative, emphasizing its potential to enhance transparency. “There’s hundreds of reports out there. I mean, yeah, you can do a Google search and you run through a million different results but if you can see, ‘Oh, there’s one where location I can go run searches, search by department, whatever it happens to be,’ find that, I think it’ll be a lot easier for everybody,” Aragona explained.
Despite some Democrats opposing the bill on the grounds that it may be redundant, as reports are already accessible online, the proposed legislation now advances to the Senate, which is led by Democrats, alongside the bills addressing administrative rules.
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