South Carolina § 1-23-125 - Approval, disapproval and modification of regulations.

§ 1-23-125. Approval, disapproval and modification of regulations.

(A) The legislative committee to which a regulation is submitted is not authorized to amend a particular regulation and then introduce a joint resolution approving the regulation as amended; however, this provision does not prevent the introduction of a resolution disapproving one or more of a group of regulations submitted to the committee and approving others submitted at the same time or deleting a clearly separable portion of a single regulation and approving the balance of the regulation in the committee resolution.

(B) If a majority of a committee determines that it cannot approve a regulation in the form submitted, it shall notify the promulgating agency in writing along with its recommendations as to changes that would be necessary to obtain committee approval. The agency may:

(1) withdraw the regulation from the General Assembly and resubmit it with the recommended changes to the Speaker and the President of the Senate, but any regulation not resubmitted within thirty days is considered permanently withdrawn;

(2) withdraw the regulation permanently; or

(3) take no action and abide by whatever action is taken or not taken by the General Assembly on the regulation concerned.

(C) The notification tolls the one-hundred-ten-day legislative review period for automatic approval, and when an agency withdraws regulations from the General Assembly prior to the time a committee resolution to approve or disapprove the regulation has been introduced, the remainder of the period begins to run only on the date the regulations are resubmitted to the General Assembly. Upon resubmission of the regulations, additional days must be added to the days remaining in the legislative review period for automatic approval, if less than twenty days, to equal twenty days, and a copy of the amended regulation must be given to each member of the committee. If an agency decides to take no action pursuant to subsection (B)(3), it shall notify the committee in writing, and the remainder of the period begins to run only upon this notification.

(D) This section, as it applies to approval, disapproval, or modification of regulations, only applies to joint resolutions introduced by the committees to which regulations are submitted.

(E) A regulation submitted to the General Assembly for review may be withdrawn by the agency for any reason. The regulation may be resubmitted by the agency for legislative review during the legislative session without repeating the requirements of Section 1-23-110, 1-23-111, or 1-23-115 if the resubmitted regulation contains no substantive changes from the previously submitted version.

HISTORY: 1979 Act No. 188, SECTION 1; 1980 Act No. 442, SECTION 3; 1982 Act No. 414, SECTION 1; 1979 Act No. 188, SECTION 1; 1980 Act No. 442, SECTION 3; 1982 Act No. 414, SECTION 1; 1988 Act No. 605, SECTION 3; 1996 Act No. 411, SECTION 9; 2007 Act No. 104, SECTION 3, eff July 1, 2008; 2019 Act No. 1 (S.2), SECTIONS 82, 83, eff January 31, 2019; 2025 Act No. 13 (S.164), SECTION 5, eff May 8, 2025.

Editor's Note

2007 Act No. 104, SECTION 5, provides as follows:

"This act takes effect July 1, 2008, and applies to regulations for which a notice of a public hearing has been published in the State Register, in accordance with Section 1-23-110(A)(3) of the 1976 Code, after June 30, 2008; all other regulations under General Assembly review on this act's effective date must be processed and reviewed in accordance with the law in effect on June 30, 2008."

2025 Act No. 13, SECTION 6, provides as follows:

"The provisions of Chapter 23, Title 1, as amended by this act, are applicable to regulations filed with the President of the Senate and Speaker of the House of Representatives on and after January 14, 2025."

Effect of Amendment

The 2007 amendment, in subsection (A), deleted the last sentence relating to withdrawal or modification of a regulation under legislative review and rewrote subsection (E) which required public comment on regulations containing a substantive change.

2019 Act No. 1, SECTION 82, in (B)(1), substituted "President of the Senate" for "Lieutenant Governor", and made a nonsubstantive change.

2019 Act No. 1, SECTION 83, in (D), substituted "only applies to joint resolutions introduced by the committees to which regulations are submitted" for "does not apply to joint resolutions introduced by other than the committees to which regulations are initially referred by the Lieutenant Governor or the Speaker of the House of Representatives".

2025 Act No. 13, SECTION 5, in (C), in the first sentence, substituted "one-hundred-ten-day legislative review period" for "one-hundred-twenty-day period", in the second sentence, inserted "legislative" preceding "review period", and made a nonsubstantive change.