HB19-1163 Summary

• Requires state agencies to prepare a regulatory flexibility analysis when adopting rules, defining "small business" as independently owned entities with 100 or fewer employees.

• Mandates agencies consider methods to reduce regulatory impact on small businesses, including less stringent compliance requirements, extended deadlines, simplified reporting, different performance standards, and exemptions.

• Agencies must determine rule necessity, identify fiscal impacts, analyze least costly alternatives, and adopt the least costly approach unless providing written justification for a more costly method.

• Requires agencies to expand outreach and actively solicit small business participation in representative groups and rule-making hearings, with good-faith efforts to contact small businesses lacking trade association representation.

• Establishes a one-stop website location on the Department of Regulatory Agencies website for public access to regulatory flexibility analyses, and allows small businesses to request cost-benefit analyses or administrative law judge hearings if dissatisfied with an agency's flexibility analysis.