Definitions per Office of Administrative Hearings (OAH)

• Necessary with substantive public interest- Means any rule for which the agency has received public comments within the past two years. A rule is also "necessary with substantive public interest" if the rule affects the property interest of the regulated public and the agency knows or suspects that any person may object to the rule.
• Necessary without substantive public interest- Means a rule for which the agency has not received a public comment concerning the rule within the past two years. A "necessary without substantive public interest" rule includes a rule that merely identifies information that is readily available to the public, such as an address or a telephone number.
• Unnecessary rule - Means a rule that the agency determines to be obsolete, redundant, or otherwise not needed.
• "Public comment" is defined by G.S.150B-21.3A(a)(5) as written objection to all or part of a rule. Additionally, pursuant to G.S. 150B-21.3A(c)(2), in order for the Rules Review Commission to determine whether the public comment has merit, the public comment must address the specific substance of the rule and address any of the standards of Commission review, as set forth in G.S. 150B-21.9(a).

Process

1. The first step of the review process involves classifying each existing rule as per the above criteria.
2. The next step in the review process is to accept comments from the public regarding the classification of the existing rules. Within the specified time period, any member of the public may submit a comment regarding the rules. 

Public comments may be sent via the US Postal Service or by electronic submission, including fax or email. Please note that due to the volume of responses, individual comments will not receive a reply, but each comment will receive a response on the merits in the report to be submitted to the Rules Review Commission at the conclusion of the comment period.

Public comments must be written with an objection to a rule in whole or in part, and the objection must address the content of the rule.

Comments may be sent:

Below please find links to the rules open for public comment due to the periodic review schedule:

Currently there are no rules scheduled for periodic review. 

Please see Proposed Rules and Public Comment  for those rules previously reviewed and scheduled for readoptions.