111—3.10(17A) Exemptions from public rule-making procedures.

1. 3.10(1)  Omission of notice and comment. To the extent the commission, for good cause, finds that public notice and participation are unnecessary, impracticable, or contrary to the public interest in the process of adopting a particular rule, the commission may adopt that rule without publishing advance Notice of Intended Action in the Iowa Administrative Bulletin and without providing for written or oral public submissions prior to its adoption. The commission shall incorporate the required finding and a brief statement of its supporting reasons in each rule adopted in reliance upon this subrule.

2. 3.10(2)  Categories exempt. The following narrowly tailored categories of rules are exempted from the usual public notice and participation requirements because those requirements are unnecessary, impracticable, or contrary to the public interest with respect to each and every member of the defined class:

   Rules which are mandated by federal law or regulation are exempted from the usual public notice and public participation requirements in any situation where the commission has no option but to adopt specified rules or where federal funding is contingent upon the adoption of the rules. Notice and public participation would be unnecessary since the provisions of the law or regulation must be adopted in order to maintain federal funding and the commission would have no option in the rule which was adopted.

3. 3.10(3)  Public proceedings on rules adopted without them. The department may, at any time, commence a standard rule-making proceeding for the adoption of a rule that is identical or similar to a rule adopted in reliance upon subrule 3.10(1). Upon written petition by a governmental subdivision, the administrative rules review committee, a department, the administrative rules coordinator, an association having not less than 25 members, or at least 25 persons, the department shall commence a standard rule-making proceeding for any rule specified in the petition that was adopted in reliance upon subrule 3.10(1). Such a petition must be filed within one year of the publication of the specified rule in the Iowa Administrative Bulletin as an adopted rule. The rule-making proceeding on that rule must be commenced within 60 days of the receipt of such a petition. After a standard rule-making proceeding is commenced pursuant to this subrule, the commission may either readopt the rule it adopted without benefit of all usual procedures on the basis of subrule 3.10(1), or may take any other lawful action, including the amendment or repeal of the rule in question, with whatever further proceedings are appropriate.