Last Updated: Apr 27, 2021

A recent Executive Order, signed by Gov. Wolf, directs all departments, offices, boards, commissions, and councils under the Governor’s jurisdiction (that suspended a regulatory statute or regulation) to recommend action to reduce or eliminate regulatory impediments to economic, health and safety, and employment recovery.

The full Executive Order can be access here.

Pursuant to the Executive Order, affected agencies must do the following:

• Review all suspensions of regulatory statutes and regulations and evaluate the legal, administrative, public health and safety, and fiscal impacts of maintaining the suspensions outside of the COVID-19 disaster emergency
  
• Based on this review and evaluation, recommend, with rationale, whether such suspensions should be made permanent (i.e., through new legislation or regulatory action), and which suspensions should be allowed to lapse after the end of the COVID-19 disaster emergency.
  
• Outline the action necessary to make permanent any recommended changes resulting from the current suspension of regulatory statutes and regulations.

The Executive Order applies to all regulatory and statutory provisions waived or suspended in part during the COVID-19 emergency. Note that this Order does not apply to any waivers that extended licensing deadlines or those that had an adverse impact on the Commonwealth’s General Fund or other funds.

The Pennsylvania Department of Health, Department of State, Bureau of Professional and Occupational Affairs, and professional licensing boards have temporarily waived or suspended a number of regulatory and statutory requirements. This Executive Order requires these entities to review the waivers/suspensions enacted and make recommendations on which of these waivers/suspensions should be permanent.

To make regulatory and statutory waivers/suspensions permanent, some type of action (this action could come either through the legislative or regulatory processes dependent upon whether the requirement waived or suspended comes from regulatory or statutory provisions).

A full listing of waivers issued by the Pa. Department of State can be accessed here.

The Pennsylvania Medical Society (PAMED) will continue to monitor regulatory changes proposed and legislation introduced and provide updates to members accordingly.