Secretary of State

Rules on Rules for State Agencies

Chapter 1: Rules on Rules

Effective Date: 09/23/2016 to 01/21/2017

Rule Type: Expired Emergency Rules & Regulations

Reference Number: 002.0016.1.09232016

Purpose, Definitions, General Filing Provisions, and Copies of Rules

Chapter 1

Emergency rules are in effect no longer than 120 days after filing with the Secretary of State.

Section 1. Statement of Purpose. As the Registrar of Rules, the Secretary of State is establishing requirements for rule formatting, definition of terms, initial processes for rule promulgation, and rule filing under the Administrative Procedure Act, W.S. 16-3-101 through 16-3-106.

Section 2. Definitions. The definitions in W.S. 16-3-101(b) shall apply to these rules. The following definitions shall also apply:

1. (a) “Amended” means a proposed regular rule that alters all or part of a current rule. An Amended rule may or may not be a New Rule.
2. (b) “Chapter” means a grouping of rule sections having a common subject matter under a single program.
3. (c) “Created” means a proposed regular rule that does not currently exist.
4. (d) “Cumbersome” means:
5. (i) Any document over ten (10) pages; and/or
6. (ii) Any document where formatting the incorporated material would cause the agency to purchase special software and/or incur unreasonable amounts of staff time to prepare including documents containing graphics, tables, drawings, equations, scientific nomenclature, special symbols or non-Arabic numerals.
7. (e) “Current” means the regular rule which is presently in effect.
8. (f) “Date of Adoption” means the date the agency adopts rules. If the agency is a board or commission, the date of adoption means the date of the public meeting where the board or commission adopts rules.
9. (g) “Emergency Rule” means a temporary rule promulgated pursuant to W.S. 16-3-103 (b).
10. (h) “Filed” means the date the rule was accepted and made effective by the Registrar of Rules.

(j) 'Final' means a regular rule that has been certified by the Governor and has been filed with the Registrar of Rules.

(k) 'New' means a proposed regular rule that is promulgated in response to a Wyoming legislative enactment not previously addressed in whole or in part by prior rulemaking.

(m) 'Program' means a grouping of rules all having a common subject matter or jurisdiction and belonging to a single agency, board or commission.

(n) 'Regular Rule' means a final rule promulgated pursuant to W.S. 16-3-103.

(o) 'Repealed' means a rule which has been removed with re-enactment (or replacement) in a different chapter, program, or agency; or without replacement. The existing rule shall be stricken through in a way to illustrate the entire chapter is being repealed and enables the public to clearly read the full text of the rule the agency proposes to repeal.

(p) 'Rules' means rules and regulations.

(q) 'Statement of Reasons' means a brief and concise statement of the principal reason(s) for the adoption of a rule, which explains either the terms or substance of the proposed rule or a description of the subjects and issues involved and which meets the requirements of Tri-State Generation & Transmission Ass'n v. Environmental Quality Council, 590 P.2d 1324 (Wyo. 1979).

(r) 'Strike and Underscore Copy' is an electronic file containing the rule with additions to language marked with a single-line underscore and deletion of existing language marked with a single-dash strike-through.

(s) 'Superseded' means a final rule which has been amended by a current rule relating to the same general subject matter.

Section 3. Agency, Program, Chapter Modifications.

(a) Agencies create and name their own programs and chapters within programs.

(b) In order to avoid public confusion, it is the Agency's responsibility to ensure that programs and their related chapters of rules maintain similar subject matter content and/or are a logical outgrowth of that content.

(c) Programs may:

(i) Be moved from one Agency to another due to statutory changes or reorganization of government.

(A) The current rule chapters of a program being moved shall be repealed by filing a Proposed Rule Packet; and

(B) The current rule chapters shall be new rules filed under the surviving Agency and Program.

(ii) Have their rules repealed and a new program created if programs merge, are changed, or if such change would create efficiency for the agency or reduce numbers or length of rules.

(A) The current rule chapters of a program being changed shall be repealed by filing a Proposed Rules Packet; and

(B) Proposed rules shall be filed under the surviving Program clearly setting forth the program and chapter changes.

(d) Once a chapter number has been repealed, it cannot be reused.

(e) Agencies may reserve chapter numbers for future use by utilizing the regular rule making process.

Section 4. General Filing Provisions.

(a) State agency rules shall be filed with the Registrar of Rules on the Administrative Rules System. All forms shall be mandatory, unless specified otherwise, and are found on the Secretary of State's website: http://sos.wyo.gov or http://rules.wyo.gov.

(b) An agency promulgating rules shall use the Wyoming Administrative Rules System to enter all rules:

(i) Proposed Rules Packet;

(ii) Final Rules Packet;

(iii) Emergency Rules Packet; and

(iv) Withdrawals of Proposed Rules.

(c) Complete packets shall be delivered by the system electronically to the Governor, the Legislative Service Office, and the Attorney General, upon verification for filing by the Registrar of Rules.

(d) No rule shall include a table of contents, title page, or index in the PDF or Word (.docx) file in any rule packet. Rules posted to this system notwithstanding, agencies may include tables of content, title pages and an index if separately listing rules on their agency website or publishing their rules.

(e) An Agency shall submit the entire rule chapter even if only a section is being amended.

Section 5. Copies of Rules.

(a) Interested persons may obtain a certified copy of any Official Rule from the Registrar of Rules upon written request and payment of a copy fee as set forth in W.S. 9-1-305.

(b) The official copy of a state Agency’s rules shall be that which is obtained from the Registrar of Rules website at http://rules.wyo.gov.