Bill Text: VA HB727 | 2024 | Regular Session | Prefiled
Bill Title: Administrative Process Act; emergency regulations for economic development projects.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Republican 1-0)
Status: (Introduced) 2024-02-13 - Left in General Laws [HB727 Detail]
Download: Virginia-2024-HB727-Prefiled.html
Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia:
1. That the Code of Virginia is amended by adding a section numbered 2.2-4011.1 as follows:
§2.2-4011.1. Emergency regulations for economic development projects.
A. For the purposes of this section:
"Qualifying economic development project" means a project between a private entity and a state agency of the Commonwealth that (i) has signed a memorandum of agreement with the Virginia Economic Development Partnership or the Virginia Innovation Partnership Authority or (ii) has received approval for an individual incentive package from the MEI Project Approval Commission pursuant to §30-310.
"Waiver" means approval to promulgate regulations using the emergency regulation process described in subsections C, D, and E of §2.2-4011 or to suspend certain current regulatory requirements in accordance with this section.
B. An agency may receive a waiver for the creation of entrepreneurial economic development projects upon consultation with and receipt of the approval of the Virginia Economic Development Partnership or the Virginia Innovation Partnership Authority and the approval of the Governor that such waiver is necessary for the success of a qualifying economic development project. Such approval shall be granted only after the agency has submitted a written request, which shall include a detailed explanation of the entrepreneurial economic development project and the necessity for a waiver in relation thereto. Any agency that receives a waiver pursuant to this section shall publish such waiver in the Register of Regulations in lieu of filing a Notice of Intended Regulatory Action. Such publication shall include the date upon which such waiver shall become effective and the date, if any, upon which such waiver shall expire. Following the effective date of the waiver, the agency or agencies whose regulations have been waived may proceed with a regulatory action to permanently promulgate the regulations promulgated through this waiver process or to permanently repeal any regulatory requirements that were suspended through this waiver process.
C. Neither the Virginia Economic Development Partnership, the Virginia Innovation Partnership Authority, nor the Governor shall approve the waiver described in subsection B until the agency requesting such approval has submitted a written notice of the regulations for which it seeks to receive a waiver to (i) an applicable standing committee of the Senate and the House of Delegates and (ii) the Joint Commission on Administrative Rules. Any waiver received pursuant to this section shall only apply to the qualifying economic development project for which it was requested.
D. This section shall not apply to the promulgation of regulations (i) pursuant to the Virginia Occupational Safety and Health Program of the Virginia Department of Labor and Industry or (ii) developed by the Department of Environmental Quality.
