§ 801 - Short title and definitions
§ 801. Short title and definitions
(a) This chapter may be cited as the "Vermont Administrative Procedure Act."
(b) As used in this chapter:
(1) "Agency" means a state board, commission, department, agency, or other entity or officer of state government, other than the legislature, the courts, the Commander in Chief and the Military Department, authorized by law to make rules or to determine contested cases;
(2) "Contested case" means a proceeding, including but not restricted to rate-making and licensing, in which the legal rights, duties, or privileges of a party are required by law to be determined by an agency after an opportunity for hearing;
(3) "License" includes the whole or part of any agency permit, certificate, approval, registration, charter, or similar form of permission required by law;
(4) "Licensing" includes the agency process respecting the grant, denial, renewal, revocation, suspension, annulment, withdrawal, or amendment of a license;
(5) "Party" means each person or agency named or admitted as a party, or properly seeking and entitled as of right to be admitted as a party;
(6) "Person" means any individual, partnership, corporation, association, governmental subdivision, or public or private organization of any character other than an agency;
(7) "Practice" means a substantive or procedural requirement of an agency, affecting one or more persons who are not employees of the agency, which is used by the agency in the discharge of its powers and duties. The term includes all such requirements, regardless of whether they are stated in writing;
(8) "Procedure" means a practice which has been adopted in the manner provided in section 835 of this title, either at the election of the agency or as the result of a request under subsection 831(b) of this title;
(9) "Rule" means each agency statement of general applicability which implements, interprets, or prescribes law or policy and which has been adopted in the manner provided by sections 836-844 of this title;
(10) "Incorporation by reference" means the use of language in the text of a regulation which expressly refers to a document other than the regulation itself;
(11) "Adopting authority" means, for agencies which are attached to the agencies of administration, development and community affairs, natural resources, human services and transportation, or any of their components, the secretaries of those agencies; for agencies attached to other departments or any of their components, the commissioners of those departments; and for other agencies, the chief officer of the agency. However, for the procedural rules of boards with quasi-judicial powers, for the transportation board, for the Vermont veterans' memorial cemetery advisory board and for the fish and wildlife board, the chairman or executive secretary of the board shall be the adopting authority. The secretary of state shall be the adopting authority for the office of professional regulation;
(12) "Small business" means a business employing no more than twenty full-time employees. (1967, No. 360 (Adj. Sess.), § 1, eff. July 1, 1969; amended 1981, No. 82, § 1; 1983, No. 158 (Adj. Sess.), eff. April 13, 1984; 1985, No. 56, § 1; 1985, No. 269 (Adj. Sess.), § 4; 1987, No. 76, § 18; 1989, No. 69, § 2, eff. May 27, 1989; 1989, No. 250 (Adj. Sess.), § 88; 2001, No. 149 (Adj. Sess.), § 46, eff. June 27, 2002.)