Maine Administrative Procedure Act

The act governs how state administrative agencies make rules and how they resolve individual contested cases. On the rulemaking side it requires agencies to give advance notice of proposed rules, take public comment, prepare analyses of a proposed rule's anticipated impacts, and file and index rules before they take effect, while also providing for emergency rulemaking, public petitions to adopt rules, and periodic agency review of rules already on the books. For contested cases it establishes notice and an opportunity to be heard, the right to counsel, interpreters for deaf or hearing-impaired parties and witnesses, and informal disposition, and it preserves judicial review — including declaratory judgment actions testing the validity of a rule.

Editorial summary generated from the text of this act. It is not part of the statute — read the sections below for the operative language.