Oklahoma Regulators review their rules and find some are outdated

 

A review of operations at the Oklahoma Corporation Commission stemming from an executive order found dozens of rules out of thousands that are duplicative or outdated.

The review came about after the Judicial and Legislative Services Division of the Commission created Executive Order 2020-03. A Compliance Report Team, consisting of OCC staff attorneys and representatives from each OCC Division, reviewed thousands of rules in the operations of the Commission in search of rules that are costly, ineffective, duplicative, outdated or unnecessary.

“As evidence of our frequent rulemakings, the comprehensive review has identified only 52 rules for this report out of thousands of OCC rules,” stated the report that has been sent to the Governor, the President Pro Tempore of the Oklahoma Senate and the Speaker of the Oklahoma House of Representatives.

“After each OCC Division completed its review, the Division’s staff attorney performed an additional review to ensure that all rules on the list met the criteria set forth in EO 2020-03,” the report added.

“Division staff attorneys paid particular attention to making sure that the OCC Divisions did not include rules that are required by Federal or State law. Staff attorneys submitted final lists for inclusion in the report to be submitted pursuant to EO 2020-03.”

An example of an outdated rule was 5-1-5(f) which concerned the filing of documents.

“This rule concerns the filing of documents with the OCC Court Clerk by fax. This rule is outdated and should be updated to include filing by email,” found the report.

Eight rules found under the Railroad heading were found to be outdated because the Commission no longer regulates some of the railway requirements.

Under filing requirements, the commission found a 1994 rule that was also outdated.

“This subsection, in part, is outdated because it references
“diskettes” and should instead be modified to “electronic
documents.” The balance of this subsection, at this time, remains
necessary.”

A 1998 requirement for filing was also found to be outdated.

“This subsection, in part, requires a certain number of copies to be
filed with the OCC Court Clerk. This element of this subsection is
costly due to the quantity of copies required. It will soon become
unnecessary upon implementation of an e-filing system. The
balance of this subsection, at this time, remains necessary.”

Click here to review the report and its findings of outdated rules.