A proposed House bill would create a new office within the Department of Economic Development that aims to help innovators.

The House Economic Development Committee heard testimony Wednesday morning about the “Regulatory Sandbox Act” sponsored by Rep. Alex Riley, R-Springfield. A similar bill was the subject of a Senate hearing last week.

This new Regulatory Relief Office would allow for certain state laws or regulations to be waived or temporarily suspended “during a 24-month period in which the participating business demonstrates an innovative product offering to consumers,” according to the bill summary.

Riley said the purpose of the bill is to help innovators who want to bring new ideas, products or services to the market but may not be able to because of “regulatory burdens.”

Riley said a 2017 study found that the state of Missouri had over 113,112 regulations that affected businesses or individuals. He said this number does not include additional regulations from cities, municipalities, counties or the federal government.

Riley also said this number has not decreased since then.

Riley said that as an attorney, he is frustrated that many people who want to provide for their families and start a business have to pay attorneys “to figure out which of these 113,112 regulations they have to comply with.”

“At its heart, that affects your small businesses, your mom-and-pop shops the most,” Riley said. “The big guys have the resources to pay people like me to do that and to make sure that they’re hopping through all the regulatory hoops. Little guy doesn’t.”

If the bill becomes law, an innovator will have to file an application with the Regulatory Relief Office. Riley said the application would then be sent for approval to the state department that would regulate the product or service.

The department can then veto regulatory relief for the product or service, and there is no appeal process, Riley said.

Riley said he supported an earlier version of this bill last year but has since revised it after working with other representatives who had concerns about issues such as transparency and bipartisanship.

Riley said trade secret information would be protected, but the public would be able to obtain information about the companies seeking regulatory relief in the Sandbox.

Riley said the program’s advisory committee would also feature more bipartisan representation.

Rep. Michael Johnson, D-Kansas City, thanked Riley during the hearing for addressing in the bill his concerns and the concerns of other representatives.

Riley said this Sandbox concept comes from Europe, with the United Kingdom being the first to implement this type of program. Riley said that many U.S. states have adopted variations of this program, with most of these only offering the program for specific industries.

If this bill passes, Missouri would be the third U.S. state — following Arizona and Utah — to offer this “Regulatory Sandbox” program across all industries, Riley said.

The committee heard several people testify in support of the bill. Michael Berg, the political director of the Sierra Club Missouri chapter, was the only person to testify against it.

Berg worried about the bill’s potential to “undermine the concept of the impartial rule of law.” He said allowing the relief office to waive or suspend state laws could be unconstitutional.

Berg also addressed concerns about environmental protections and “vague” language in the bill.

“Innovative means ‘new,’” Berg said. “Sometimes new things are good, sometimes they are not, and (we) want to make sure things can’t evade or have rules temporarily not function just because it’s new.”