The California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) received official notice Thursday that the Office of Administrative Law (OAL) disapproved the regulatory package containing 25 proposed rules that the Board approved November 15, 2012, for the regulation of exchange wagering.
The CHRB staff already has begun work on addressing all of the OAL concerns in an effort to place the matter back before the racing commissioners as quickly as possible. If the Board approves the changes, the proposed rules then will be noticed to the public, followed by a public hearing, and then resubmitted to OAL. During the public comment period, interested parties may submit comments regarding changes to the texts of the regulations. Upon resubmission, OAL will review only the resubmitted regulations for those reasons expressly identified in the written opinion.
The OAL review is an independent executive branch check on the exercise of rulemaking powers by executive branch agencies and is intended to improve the quality of rules and regulations. The CHRB submitted a regulatory package of more than a thousand pages to OAL on January 31. After a detailed review, OAL disapproved the regulatory package for failure to comply with the specified standards of necessity, consistency and clarity in eight of the 25 proposed regulations, as well as certain procedures of the California Administrative Procedure Act.
Complete texts of all 25 rules can be found on the CHRB website (listed as Item 10). The complete OAL disapproval decision can be found on the OAL website.
Once the CHRB resubmits a regulatory package acceptable to OAL, even after the rules go into effect, exchange wagering can only begin after a California racetrack and the horsemen’s organization at that racetrack reach an agreement with one or more exchange wagering companies and they bring that agreement/operating plan to the Board for final approval.
(CHRB)