HBA-KDB H.B. 3411 77(R) BILL ANALYSIS Office of House Bill AnalysisH.B. 3411 By: McClendon State Affairs 4/11/2001 Introduced BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE State agency rules implement state laws in detail and govern many aspects of the lives of Texas residents. However, there is concern that the majority of adult Texans cannot comprehend state agency rules. The complexity of such rules may be because the rules are typically written by attorneys who write for their peers. In addition, rules are often adopted under severe time pressures to meet state or federal requirements, which may not allow for clear and simple writing. Once the rules are adopted, there is no guarantee that a state agency will rewrite the rules in a clearer fashion. This problem could be solved if state agency rules were written in plain language that an average Texan with at least a high school education could understand. House Bill 3411 provides a set of tools, techniques, and strategies for each state agency to use in making its rules clear, accessible, understandable, and usable to all residents of this state who have at least a high school education. RULEMAKING AUTHORITY It is the opinion of the Office of House Bill Analysis that rulemaking authority is expressly delegated to all state agencies in SECTION 3 of this bill. ANALYSIS House Bill 3411 requires each state agency to plan and execute a permanent program to study and recodify the rules of the agency to make the rules clear, accessible, understandable, and usable to all citizens of this state who have at least a high school education. The bill requires each state agency to propose, in the Texas Register (register), recodification of at least eight percent of its rules, calculated by the number of words, by December 1, 2002, and to propose to recodify at least eight percent of its rules by December 1 of each year thereafter. The recodification is rulemaking and is required to be proposed and adopted in accordance with the Administrative Procedure Act. The comment period for a recodification is required to be a minimum of 120 days after publication in the register. The bill authorizes a state agency to extend the comment period with notice in the register. The bill provides that a recodification must be adopted and filed with the register within 270 days after publication of the proposal in the register. The bill requires each state agency to file a schedule for recodification of all its rules with the secretary of state by November 1, 2001. Such a schedule is required to include the state agency's assessment of the reading level of its rules on a chapter by chapter basis. To implement this Act, the bill establishes provisions regarding plain language liaisons, the establishment of the plain language advisory committee, a formula for establishing readability scores, drafting standards and procedures for agencies, and agency self-assessment of the reading level of its rules. The bill encourages user testing of state agency documents with average citizens. The bill provides that the recodification of the rules should have a readability score of 50 or greater according to the readability formula and calculation procedures unless the state agency specifies in the preamble of the recodification the efforts the agency has made to recodify the rules in plain language, the plain language techniques that have been used in the recodification, and the reasons why a readability level of 50 could not be achieved. H.B. 3411 amends the Government Code to require the Sunset Advisory Commission and its staff in determining whether a public need exists for the continuation of a state agency to consider the extent to which the state agency's rules and publications are written in plain language and readable on a 12th grade reading level, the state agency has recodified its rules for readability and usability purposes, and the state agency has engaged in user testing of its rules and publications. The bill requires the Texas Education Agency to assist the plain language advisory committee in correlating various grade reading levels with the readability formula to assist agencies in assessing the readability of the agencies' rules and other documents. This Act expires on September 1, 2013. The bill sets forth provisions regarding standard readability language in the preamble of all state agency rule proposals after September 1, 2001, and the readability of other state agency publications. EFFECTIVE DATE September 1, 2001.