Sonnenberg’s CLEAR Act Passes House Economic and Business Development Committee with Bipartisan Support

DENVER—The CLEAR Act, or Creating Level Expectations for Application Review Act, passed the House Economic and Business Development Committee today with a vote of 11-1-1.

Sponsored by state Rep. Jerry Sonnenberg, the CLEAR Act ensures that the rules of an agency in place when an application is filed govern that application for the duration of its review.

Currently, rules are subject to sudden changes, which force applicants to withdraw their original application and waste valuable time and resources just to refile.

“The state should be working to accommodate the needs of business owners, not the other way around,” said Patrick Boyle of the Colorado Competitive Council. “When businesses must go out of their way to accommodate a rule change, that’s not fair. Those losses add up.”

 The CLEAR Act is one of a number of bills House Republicans have introduced that removes regulatory barriers to business and helps clear the way for job creation. The measure comes as a direct result of the input they received from job creators on their Building a Better Colorado tour last October.

“Sitting down with business owners and meeting them face to face, we hear the same thing all the time,” said Sonnenberg, R-Sterling. “Government needs to get out of the way. This bill helps accomplish that.”

###