AB 851

Under current law, in order to promulgate a rule, an agency must submit a

statement of scope for the proposed rule for review by the Department of

Administration and approval by the governor. Once the governor approves the

statement, the agency must send the approved statement of scope to the Legislative

Reference Bureau for publication in the Wisconsin Administrative Register before

continuing with the rule promulgation process. A statement of scope expires after

30 months, after which the agency may not promulgate any rule based on that

statement of scope that has not been submitted for legislative review by the

expiration date. This bill does the following:

1. Limits an agency to promulgating one permanent and one emergency rule

per statement of scope.

2. Allows an agency to formally withdraw a statement of scope prior to its

expiration date by sending a withdrawal notice for the statement to the LRB for

publication in the Wisconsin Administrative Register. Once a statement of scope has

been withdrawn, the agency may not promulgate a rule based upon that statement

of scope and all proposed rules based upon that statement of scope that are in the

process of being promulgated are automatically withdrawn.

3. Clarifies that, when a statement of scope expires, an agency also may not

promulgate an emergency rule based upon that statement of scope.