As the BP oil spill has the Obama administration and Congress pondering future safeguards for environmental policy, Connecticut is pushing ahead with a law intended to prevent economic development projects from getting mired in the environmental permitting process.
In early June, Gov. M. Jodi Rell signed into law reforms for the state”™s environmental permitting process and emphasized no threat to the environment is posed by the bill. In February, the Republican Rell had given a task force 45 days to come up with reforms, and won support from Democrats who hold sway over the Connecticut General Assembly.
The law followed a 36-page report in April by a Rell task force that declared the Department of Environmental Protection”™s permitting processes “cumbersome and time consuming,” while recognizing DEP”™s efforts to implement “LEAN” processes to minimize wasted time and effort. The LEAN initiative is designed “to eliminate wasted time and effort.”
For instance, in applying LEAN principles to the agency”™s wastewater discharge permitting activities in a trial ended this past May, DEP cut the permit process time from more than 30 months to under five. The agency reported similar gains on LEAN pilot programs for Long Island Sound permitting, water enforcement, and other initiatives.
With the new law in place, businesses hope DEP will make such an approach an agency norm, rather than a pilot project.
“This legislation will make Connecticut much more business friendly, yet strikes a very important balance by safeguarding our environment,” Rell said in a signing ceremony at GSS Industries in Waterbury. “We have worked too hard to protect our natural resources to lose ground just for the sake of speedy paperwork.”
In testifying on the bill this spring in Hartford, DEP Commissioner Amey Marrella vowed to strike a balance, noting it is more cost effective to minimize pollution rather than to deal with consequences.
“We firmly believe that it is in Connecticut”™s long-term interest, both economically and environmentally, to maintain Connecticut’s high standards of environmental protection, so we will be strongly opposing any effort to roll back protections or to make our job as an agency more cumbersome,” Marrella said. “At the same time, we realize that to help Connecticut businesses, we need to be more timely and more efficient in issuing permits, and that we need to set clear requirements that are applied consistently.”
Some DEP bureaus are meeting already with the business community to discuss reducing the current time frames for processing permits, according to Eric Brown, an associate counsel with the Connecticut Business & Industry Association who was a member of the task force along with Norwalk Mayor Richard Moccia and several others.
The law requires the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to examine all of its permitting processes, and come up with shorter time periods for permit reviews. DEP is required to make all reasonable efforts to review initial permit applications for problems within 60 days, and make final determinations within 180 days. The bill automatically extends any general permit beyond its original expiration date, provided DEP has already proposed a renewal of the permit.
The bill also creates a permit ombudsman position within the Department of Economic and Community Development to work with companies seeking permits from DEP, the Department of Public Health and the Department of Transportation. Both New York and Massachusetts have such environmental ombudsmen in place.
Other provisions include:
Ӣ eliminating unnecessary or duplicative public hearings;
Ӣ requiring DEP to create a consulting services program to help businesses on projects; and
Ӣ requiring DEP to adopt revise regulations on water quality standards.
