Pursuant to RSA 541-A:9, the Office of Legislative Services, Administrative Rules publishes a weekly publication every Thursday (or earlier if Thursday is a holiday) called the New Hampshire Rulemaking Register. For electronic copies, see Rulemaking Register Availability on this web site. To view issues on-line, see the Register year links in the column on the left of this page.

The Register contains:
  • Notices of proposed rulemaking proceedings by an agency with the rules under RSA 541-A, including a summary of the rule, rulemaking hearing date and deadline for comment in writing or electronic format, fiscal impact statement, and other information. See RSA 541-A:6, I and RSA 541-A:19, III;
  • Notices of adopted rules filed each month with the Administrative Rules office;
  • Non-confidential opinions of the Attorney General relative to rulemaking under RSA 541-A:28;
  • Notices of public meetings and hearings of the Joint Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules (JLCAR), including the list of final proposed rules and proposed interim rules on the agenda;
  • Final objections of the JLCAR pursuant to RSA 541-A:13, V;
  • Notices of continued or postponed agency rulemaking hearings or extension of public comment deadline under RSA 541-A:11;
  • Notice of a hearing or public comment period for a draft final proposed rule under RSA 541-A:11, I(c)
  • Notices of agency declaratory rulings as defined in RSA 541-A:1, V, and filed each month with the Administrative Rules office;
  • Notice of request for public comment on possible rulemaking under RSA 541-A:11, VIII.
  • Publication of notice of the list of regulated toxic air pollutants and classifications by the Department of Environmental Services under RSA 125-I:4; and
  • Any other notices or documents related to rulemaking which are submitted at the request of an agency and approved by the Director of Legislative Services.

EDITING OF AGENCY NOTICES

Pursuant to RSA 541-A:6, II, the Director of Legislative Services may refuse to publish an agency’s rulemaking notice only for "significant noncompliance" with the format of the notice and the information required by RSA 541-A:6, I. RSA 541-A:6, II defines “significant noncompliance” as “one or more errors of such magnitude that a reasonable person would not be able to discern what rules are the subject of the rulemaking proceeding and/or what the agency is proposing to do. The term includes the absence of elements required by” RSA 541-A:6, I. The New Hampshire Drafting and Procedure Manual for Administrative Rules, with which agencies must comply, interprets "significant noncompliance" on p. 40 to include blank or missing items on the rulemaking notice form and "patently incorrect or misleading statements or information." The Administrative Rules office assists agencies in completing and correcting their filed notices when in the Director’s view these problems occur.

The Director and the Administrative Rules office have no authority to alter unilaterally or refuse to publish a notice simply because the importance of the rule might not be manifest to some readers of the notice. I t is the reader’s responsibility to take rulemaking seriously and ask the designated agency contact person in the notice for further information if the nature of the rule, or persons affected as identified in the notice, are of interest.

DEADLINE FOR FILING NOTICES

The deadline for agencies to file notices for publication in the Register is 4:30 p.m. on the Thursday one week prior to publication. This deadline is necessary to allow the Administrative Rules office time to examine and edit the notices and prepare the Register for publication online by the Thursday publication date.