17A.1 - CITATION AND STATEMENT OF PURPOSE.
17A.1 CITATION AND STATEMENT OF PURPOSE.
1. This chapter may be cited as the "Iowa Administrative
Procedure Act".
2. This chapter is intended to provide a minimum procedural code
for the operation of all state agencies when they take action
affecting the rights and duties of the public. Nothing in this
chapter is meant to discourage agencies from adopting procedures
providing greater protections to the public or conferring additional
rights upon the public; and save for express provisions of this
chapter to the contrary, nothing in this chapter is meant to abrogate
in whole or in part any statute prescribing procedural duties for an
agency which are greater than or in addition to those provided here.
This chapter is meant to apply to all rulemaking and contested case
proceedings and all suits for the judicial review of agency action
that are not specifically excluded from this chapter or some portion
thereof by its express terms or by the express terms of another
chapter.
3. The purposes of this chapter are: To provide legislative
oversight of powers and duties delegated to administrative agencies;
to increase public accountability of administrative agencies; to
simplify government by assuring a uniform minimum procedure to which
all agencies will be held in the conduct of their most important
functions; to increase public access to governmental information; to
increase public participation in the formulation of administrative
rules; to increase the fairness of agencies in their conduct of
contested case proceedings; and to simplify the process of judicial
review of agency action as well as increase its ease and
availability.
4. In accomplishing its objectives, the intention of this chapter
is to strike a fair balance between these purposes and the need for
efficient, economical and effective government administration. The
chapter is not meant to alter the substantive rights of any person or
agency. Its impact is limited to procedural rights with the
expectation that better substantive results will be achieved in the
everyday conduct of state government by improving the process by
which those results are attained. Section History: Early Form
[C75, 77, 79, 81, § 17A.1] Section History: Recent Form
2005 Acts, ch 3, §15; 2008 Acts, ch 1032, §135