On March 30, House Republicans considered House Bill 604 (Fritz-R-Susquehanna) adding more bureaucracy to the DEP permit review process, declaring in law the applicant for an environmental permit is always right and ignoring environmental justice concerns.

The bill was amended on the House Floor and referred to the House Appropriations Committee, usually a signal House Republicans want to take final action on the bill.

The amendment to the bill was to allow DEP to hold comment periods and hearings on permit applications-- the original version eliminated that.

But, hearings and comment periods would be allowed only if they are explicitly required by federal or state law.

Since most permit application hearings aren’t strictly required but optional and requested by citizens and communities with concerns about the application, it’s unclear whether the bill would allow them in time for them to make any impact on DEP’s permit decision.

Clearly, the legislation does not take into account DEP’s Environmental Justice Area Permit Review Policy for applications in lower-income and minority communities.  Read more here.

The bill establishes a new “Rube Goldberg” review process for the review of any individual or general environmental permit issued by DEP that sets a uniform 45 day review deadline for all permits, regardless of how complex.

If DEP does not meet the 45 day review time, the permit applications are automatically approved, if a professional engineer who prepared the application self-certifies the application’s contents are “true and correct” to the best of their knowledge and that the requirements for issuing the permit “have been satisfied.”

The bill also sets up a new process for determining when an application is complete that says an application is complete, “notwithstanding whether the necessary information or other information supplied in the application is sufficient to grant the application.”

It also says if there are disagreements between the applicant and DEP over completeness, a new provision is put in law that says if a professional engineer who self-certifies the application is complete, then the application is complete, unless DEP rebuts the presumption by clear and convincing evidence to a new permit completeness dispute referee.

A new process is established with a new permit completeness referee that makes determinations of whether a permit application is complete.  The decision of the referee cannot be appealed to the Environmental Hearing Board.

Some Thoughts

First, most people, even most legislators, would say doing anything that might limit the  ability for citizens to request a hearing on a hazardous waste, landfill, air quality, mining, wastewater discharge and almost all environmental permits would be a problem.

Most people would say that requiring the issuance of a DEP permit based on having someone who prepared a permit application self-certify that it is complete and meets all the requirements of environmental law and regulations is a problem.

This is especially true seeing as how the House Environmental Committee found at a hearing 50 to 60 percent of the permit applications submitted by engineers to county conservation districts, as one example, are incomplete or technically deficient and it takes them an average of 33 business days to respond to those deficiencies.  Read more here.

Add to that-- DEP is reviewing 94 percent or more of its permit applications and authorizations WITHIN the deadlines established in its Permit Decision Guarantee Program established by Gov. Ridge and re-established by Gov. Corbett, even during the COVID pandemic.  Read more here.

Most people would say ADDING bureaucracy to DEP’s permit review process in the form of a completeness “referee” and not allowing the decisions of that referee to be appealed is a problem and a violation of due process.

The bottomline is this legislation makes DEP’s permit review process LONGER, cuts out the public and allows the person who prepared the application to self-certify the permit application is correct and meets all requirements.

Related Article:

-- Republican Rep. Fritz Introduces Bills To Unilaterally Amend Delaware River Basin Commission Compact To End Fracking Moratorium

[Posted: April 1, 2022]

4/4/2022