Looking out for business ... a report from the Alaska State Chamber of Commerce--The Voice of Alaska Business.

With 40,000 regulations in Alaska and 93% of all regulations proposed becoming law, it is important for business to watch exactly how regulations are formed, enforced and reviewed to ensure we are able to navigate the system. Senator Gene Therriault has introduced a three-tier package on regulatory reform this session to render the system more efficient and flexible. The three bills are: SB 203, Fair Heating Bill, SB 287, Legislative Legal Review of Proposed Regulations and SB 333, Judicial Extraction from Administrative Review.

Currently State agencies that write and enforce administrative law also hear complaints against those laws. This can be compared to getting a traffic ticket, going to court to appeal the ticket and finding the judge not only wrote the law but also is the officer who gave you the ticket. SB 203 provides a fix for this system by separating the administrative adjudication process from the agencies.

SB 203 establishes a central hearing panel that gives heating officers a more independent and protected station from which to deliver timely due process through fair and objective hearings, thereby creating an efficient and more professional administrative hearing process. Initial start-up costs will be recouped and significant savings will accrue through these efficiencies over time. The reductions in time due to the efficiencies will also reduce costs to businesses.

SB 287 addresses two segments of the administrative regulatory development process in need of reform: 1) the lack of formal legal review before proposed regulations are put out for public comment, and 2) a review for consistency, conformity and quality of all regulations by the legislative legal team. Text of regulations adopted are often not the same as the proposed regulations on which the public commented because currently the Attorney General's Office can not conduct their final review and make changes until after public comment. Regulations amended by the AG's office do not always go back for public comment before final...