The "Small Business Regulatory Freedom Act" seeks to amend the South Carolina Code of Laws by creating a Small Business Regulatory Review Committee tasked with evaluating and reducing the regulatory burden on businesses by 25%. The committee will consider the impact of regulations on small businesses and economic development, while state agencies will be prohibited from promulgating new regulations without express statutory authority. For each new regulation proposed, agencies must identify two existing regulations to remove. Additionally, individuals can challenge the validity of regulations lacking express statutory authority in court. The bill also introduces requirements for assessment reports, including cost-benefit analyses, and mandates that regulations have an automatic expiration date, ensuring periodic reviews to address outdated regulations.

Further amendments to the regulatory review process include a tolling of the one-hundred-twenty-day automatic approval period upon the introduction of a disapproval resolution, and a prohibition on filing regulations under emergency provisions if a disapproval resolution is pending. The bill specifies requirements for joint resolutions, including a synopsis of the regulation and a summary of the final assessment report. It establishes that all administrative regulations will automatically expire eight years after their effective date unless readopted, with certain exemptions, and allows for extensions for agencies unable to meet the readoption timeline. The bill clarifies that courts will independently interpret regulations without deferring to agency interpretations. The act is set to take effect on July 1, 2026.

Statutes affected:
12/05/2024: 1-23-285, 1-23-110, 1-23-115, 1-23-120, 1-23-380
Latest Version: 1-23-285, 1-23-110, 1-23-115, 1-23-120, 1-23-380
12/06/2024: 1-23-285, 1-23-110, 1-23-115, 1-23-120, 1-23-380