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Thursday, April 07, 2005

Ind. Law - This bill hazardous to Hoosiers' health

"This bill hazardous to Hoosiers' health" is the heading to the lead editorial today in the Indianapolis Star. Some quotes:

A back-door legislative maneuver to limit the ability of state agencies to regulate the environment and deal with public health emergencies needs to be stopped.

Provisions barring the state's air pollution and water pollution control boards from adopting rules or standards more stringent than federal regulations were slipped into Senate Bill 298, a measure dealing with regulations affecting small businesses. According to state Sen. Beverly Gard, Republican chairwoman of the Energy and Environmental Affairs Committee, the amendments were an "end run" around her committee.

"It's a terrible piece of legislation that has serious consequences," the normally reserved legislator said. "We abdicate to the feds to set all of our environmental policy."

The measure could make it impossible for state environmental agencies to establish health-based standards and reporting requirements if a cluster of health problems should emerge. Indiana rule makers could be hamstrung dealing with issues unique to Indiana that the federal government doesn't address. Almost any state rule dealing with the air, water or the disposal of hazardous waste could be tied up in court for years.

The state might as well abolish its environmental boards. They would be nothing more than handmaidens to federal bureaucrats. * * *

SB 298 is now in a legislative conference committee. The amendments should be removed from the bill. If not, the governor should veto the legislation.

Looking at its history, SB 298 was prepared by the administrative rules oversight committee. Here is the introduced version. It proposed some tweaks to the administrative rulemaking statute requiring an agency to submit a rule with an estimated economic impact greater than $500,000 to the legislative services agency (LSA) for a fiscal impact statement. The "regulations dealing with small business" the Star editorial refers to were added in House Committee (see committee report). They include not only the "no more stringent provisons" references in the editorial, but much more. See the most recent digest here.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on April 7, 2005 01:12 PM
Posted to Administrative Law | Environment | Indiana Law