Senate Passes Reg Reform; House Version Up Next | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: The author of this post is Barry Smith, who is an associate editor for the Carolina Journal, John Hood Publisher.

    RALEIGH     The state Senate on Monday approved its version of regulation reform on a mostly party-line 30-15 vote.

    The 2016 version of the Senate deregulation bill includes a provision that restricts agencies from imposing costly regulations that exceed thresholds set by the statute. Another provision would end the ban on using landfills to dispose of electronic equipment such as computers and televisions.

    "The counties can no longer find a recycler," Sen. Trudy Wade, R-Guilford, said of the landfill provision. "There isn't a market for it."

    Wade's remarks came after Sen. Floyd McKissick, D-Durham, questioned that provision of the bill.

    "Those particular provisions are good," McKissick said of the recycling mandate currently in state law. "Those provisions are important." He said that the electronics recycling mandate diverted about 30 million pounds of electronics from the state's landfills in 2013 and 2014.

    Wade showed her colleagues a photo of electronic equipment stacked up at a landfill. She said she wouldn't tell where it was from because county officials didn't want people to know the equipment was stacked up at the landfill. "They're having a real problem," she said.

    Under the bill, agencies no longer could adopt a rule or set of rules with a projected total cost to businesses of $100 million or more over any five-year period. The General Assembly would have to approve those rules. In addition, any rules or set of rules costing between $10 million and $100 million over a five-year period would become effective only if the governor or a supervising Council of State member signs off on them. If the rulemaking agency is a board or commission, a supermajority vote of 60 percent of its members would be needed to adopt the rules.

    Sen. Jay Chaudhuri, D-Wake, was critical of the rules restrictions provision.

    "The General Assembly has already put in place safeguards against excessive rulemaking authority by first setting forth a detailed process, and second, empowering no less than three government bodies to oversee the rulemaking process," Chaudhuri said. "In other words, it is very, very hard to get rules passed."

    Chaudhuri said that as a former government counsel, he had been involved in making rules.

    Sen. Andy Wells, R-Catawba, had a different take.

    "If you spent a lifetime making rules, then you kind of like rules," Wells said. "If you spent a lifetime in business fighting rules ... it's a whole different point of view."

    Wells said that if proposed rules were to have a $100 million impact on the state's economy, then the legislature needs to get involved.

    The proposal also would remove eight counties - Burke, Cleveland, Robeson, Rutherford, Stanley, Stokes, Surry, and Wilkes - from annual vehicle emissions inspections. It also requires the Commission of Public Health to repeal two rules that prohibit the sale of turtles for purposes other than scientific, educational, or culinary

    The bill now goes to the House, which is working on its own regulatory reform bill.