Regulations: 5-year review and report.

The Administrative Procedure Act generally sets forth the requirements for the adoption, publication, review, and implementation of regulations by state agencies. Existing law establishes the Bureau of State Audits, which is headed by the State Auditor and has specified statutory duties, including the performance of statutorily mandated audits. This bill would require the Bureau of State Audits to review, report, and make recommendations on each regulation, before May 1 of the 5th year after the regulation was amended or adopted, that the State Energy Resources and Development Commission, the Public Utilities Commission, the California Consumer Power and Conservation Financing Authority, or any other state agency that has duties relating to state energy regulations or the implementation of those regulations adopts or amends on or after January 1, 2011. The bill would require the review, report, and recommendations to include specified factors, including a summary of the written criticisms received by the agency that adopted or amended the regulation within the preceding 5 years and the estimated economic, small business, and consumer impact of the regulation, as specified. The bill would require the bureau to make the report available on its Internet Web site. The bill would authorize the adopting agency to take specified actions in response to the bureau's report, and would provide that a regulation ceases to be operative, as specified, if the agency takes no action. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.