Legislature agrees to bill giving OLRC ability to remove existing regulations

By Aaron Rice
June 17, 2020

New legislation giving the Occupational Licensing Review Commission the ability to review existing regulations is one step closer to becoming law after the House concurred with changes from the Senate.

House Bill 1104, authored by Rep. Randy Boyd, allows OLRC to review, on its own discretion, the substance of an “existing occupational regulation promulgated by an occupational licensing board.” 

Under the law, regulations must increase economic opportunities for all of its citizens by promoting competition and thereby encouraging innovation and job growth and use the least restrictive regulation necessary to protect consumers from present, significant, and substantiated harms that threaten public health and safety.

If a regulation does not, the OLRC can declare that the noncomplying regulation will become invalid 60 days after the date of review, according to the new law. 

The OLRC is made up of the governor, attorney general, and secretary of state. 

Today, Mississippi has more than 117,000 regulations, which numerous empirical studies show to have a detrimental effect on economic growth. Mississippi also licenses 66 low-and-middle income occupations. According to a recent report from the Institute for Justice, Mississippi has lost 13,000 jobs because of occupational licensing and the state has suffered an economic value loss of $37 million.

HB 1104 passed 97-17 in the House and 36-15 in the Senate. After the concurrence, it is now headed to the governor. 

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