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New regulations that critics said would give the state Department of Health power to enter private homes without a warrant were withdrawn late Friday.
The news comes just days after the Independent Regulatory Review Commission's public comment period for the 502-page proposal ended.
In a letter to IRRC - the commission's acronym - Secretary of Health Debra Bogen asked for the rulemaking to be withdrawn, saying, "the Department intends to make further revisions to the proposed rulemaking and resubmit it as a new proposed rulemaking at a future date."
The regulations would have been the first review in 25 years, the commission recently told The Center Square.
The IRRC was created by statute 44 years ago to review proposed regulations to make sure they are in the public interest. Its executive director, David Sumner, told The Center Square that the department of Health filing was “one of the most significant rulemakings to come through our door in the last few years.”
Republican state Rep. Kathy Rapp of Warren County said there were nearly 6,000 public comments and most were against the filing. She led a group of 85 members in submitting their own 33-page complaint.
The volume apparently is not unprecedented. Sumner said regulations proposed years ago associated with what was generally known as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative drew 30,000 comments.
"The voice of the people was simply too loud, too clear and too powerful for unelected bureaucrats to ignore," Rapp said Friday of the development. "By forcing the Department of Health to back down, the people of Pennsylvania have successfully protected their constitutional liberties and medical privacy."
Signed by Bogen, the latest filing on “communicable and noncommunicable diseases” had proposed to expand the list of reportable diseases, infections, and conditions; address evolving standards and expert guidance; and “ensure the overall public health and safety by reducing the spread of diseases, infections and conditions.”
In defense of the rulemaking, Democratic representative and medical doctor Arvind Venkat of Allegheny County recently told The Center Square that Republicans “are jumping to extreme conclusions.”
Pointing to the evolution of medicine and diseases over the last two decades, he said, “they are very important to update.”