Legislative Oversight of Regulatory Agencies: the Colorado Sunset Experience
| Publication year | 1989 |
| Pages | 2129 |
| Citation | Vol. 18 No. 11 Pg. 2129 |
1989, November, Pg. 2129. Legislative Oversight of Regulatory Agencies: The Colorado Sunset Experience
In 1976, Colorado became the first state in the country to pass a "sunset" law(fn1) (the "Sunset Act", codified at CRS §§ 2-3-1201 to 1203, 24-4-103(8)(c) and (d) and 24-4-108). The theoretical premise of a sunset law is to terminate any statutory restrictions or regulatory agencies that are not necessary for public protection.(fn2) This is accomplished by a statute which subjects each regulatory agency to automatic review and termination or modification on a staggered basis.(fn3) In essence, the agency ceases to exist unless it is renewed by new legislation. As a result of this process, virtually every state regulatory agency in Colorado still in existence has been reevaluated by the legislature at least twice since the passage of the Sunset Act.
This article provides a fundamental review of the Colorado Sunset Act. The article focuses on two issues: (1) the sunset review process for administrative rules and regulations and (2) the Colorado sunset experience with regulatory agencies.
Colorado's process for legislative oversight of rules and regulations may have resulted in a greater internal impact on state government operations than the sunset review of particular
Under the five-year program, all rules of each principal department in the executive branch of government were scheduled to expire, or "sunset," on a specified date between 1980 and 1984.(fn6) Each year, beginning in 1979, the staff attorneys in the then-Legislative Drafting Office (now Office of Legislative Legal Services) reviewed the rules of each department for which rules were scheduled to expire in the following year. The General Assembly's Committee on Legal Services sponsored bills continuing the rules of each department for which rules were scheduled to expire that year, with specified exceptions where the Committee found that particular rules exceeded the department's statutory rulemaking authority or were inconsistent with the regulatory statute. The five-year sunset review process was completed as scheduled in 1984.
The annual rule review and legislative oversight of agency rules and regulations is an on-going process which begins in the office of the Attorney General. The Attorney General is required to render an opinion on every proposed new agency rule or regulation to determine if it meets statutory intent and is within the scope of rulemaking delegation contained in the enabling legislation.(fn7) Rules approved by the Attorney General are submitted to the Office of Legislative Legal Services, where they are subjected to legislative oversight review. Rules determined to be problems by legislative staff attorneys are submitted to the Legislative Committee on Legal Services. This Committee then determines whether to propose legislation to disapprove and rescind or to continue those rules.(fn8) Any newly adopted or amended rule which has not been continued or rescinded automatically expires on June 1 of the year following the rule's adoption or amendment.(fn9)
In 1987, 411 sets of administrative agency rules approved by the Attorney General were submitted to legislative legal staff for review. Of the 411 sets of rules, the legislative staff found problems with thirty-six submittals. In twenty of these, the problems were resolved informally between the agency and the legislative staff by the agency making appropriate changes or corrections in readopted rules. The remaining sixteen submittals (less than 4 percent of the total) were presented by staff to the Legislative Committee on Legal Services for its...
To continue reading
Request your trial