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Citizens Advisory Council Presentations Highlight New Center Of Environmental Excellence At DEP To Improve Permitting Efficiency, Deliver Best In Class Service, Share Results; Environmental Justice; More

At the June 13 meeting of DEP’s Citizens Advisory Council, Acting DEP Secretary Richard Negrin and Saleem Chapman, Executive Director of the new Center of Environmental Excellence, highlighted how a new Excellence initiative at DEP will provide the management framework to improve permitting efficiency, deliver best in class service to business and the public and share the results.

Center Of Environmental Excellence

"The Center of Environmental Excellence initiative is geared towards achieving tangible goals across the organization, from permitting efficiency that is a perennial concern to tracking our success reaching environmental justice goals, as well inspections, enforcements, and other DEP activities,” said Acting Secretary Negrin.

“The goal is to improve efficiency across the board and to identify needs that are holding us back.

“The Administration understands the importance of proactively addressing the permitting process and we are working internally to reduce backlog and deficiencies, permitting wait times, and communication between businesses and the Department,” said Negrin.

Saleem Chapman explained, “This new initiative that Secretary Negrin is pushing is to really try to move forward operational excellence within the department.” “We want to be able to deliver the best in class service excellence to our clients.”

Click Here for a copy of Chapman’s Presentation slides.

“What we are really trying to institute here is this idea that excellence for DEP is a practice. It's not an instinct,” said Chapman. “Perfection is an instinct. We're not going to get it right the first time around, but we're going to practice to really be able to understand, over time, we’re going to have to adapt to new and emerging things.”

“We need to be able to have the practices and infrastructure in place to be able to evolve as an agency,” said Chapman, and the Center of Environmental Excellence is part of that infrastructure.

Chapman outlined the elements in Acting Secretary Negrin’s strategy to look where the agency is and where it’s going--

-- State of the Environment

-- Environmental Justice Milestones

-- Key Successes & Highlights

-- Recognition & Acknowledgement

-- Business Operations

-- Operational Efficiency

-- Customer Experience

-- Program Management

-- Policy, Legal & Legislative Initiatives

-- Communications & Engagement

-- Leveling Up Planning and Deliver

“So we'll start by understanding where we are in the state of environmental protection-- so where we are from mining in terms of achieving a goal on abandoned mine reclamation or in terms of air quality [improvement],” said Chapman. “The next thing is we want to highlight environmental justice milestones. We [will] have goals as an agency to really make sure we're advancing that.”

“We want to follow that out in terms of where we are now in comparison to where we want to be,” explained Chapman. “We'll also highlight key successes and highlights that an area had in a given quarter, and then again recognize individuals who helped us achieve that, whether it's a junior level staff person all the way up to senior level.”

“We'll also talk about areas of operational efficiencies, so really how effectively are we delivering on the public dollar and utilizing the resources that we have?” said Chapman.

“The second aspect is around innovation, incubation, and acceleration. We want to really make sure that we're looking all across the country as well as internationally to identify high impact, high promise strategies to be able to contextualize them for DEP.”

“The next is around customer experience, so really making sure that our processes are actually meeting the needs of our clients, and then lastly, we're really touching upon policy initiatives, legal, and communication and engagement,” said Chapman.

“But the last piece is really where this all comes together. So each program area on a quarter by quarter basis, we'll do what we call leveling up planning and delivery,” said Chapman. “What we will use here is a method called objectives and key results. Each program here will be able to set particular objectives and results that they're trying to achieve in a given quarter based upon certain conditions.”

“So what we don't want is for folks to just be setting what they think will get them a nice check mark, right? This is about us achieving our results as an agency,” said Chapman. “The Secretary talked a little bit about this, he wants to delegate authority and not a task.”

“So DEP is not necessarily the most data analytical mature agency. So we have a lot of information, which tells us a lot about what we're doing at the current moment, but we don't necessarily have the ability to look into that information and understand why those things are happening,” said Chapman. “Then the next thing we're doing is being able to project forward. So we can say, "Here's where we are now. We're going to make this change or this change, and this allows us to be predictive analytics to where we ultimately want to go."

“We want to move from being a process organization. This isn't about just going through the motions, setting quarterly goals, and reaching it. That's a process. We want to focus on outcomes,” said Chapman.

The quarterly reviews under the new Center of Environmental Excellence management process will be posted online for everyone to see, said Chapman. Exactly what form that will take has not been decided, but DEP is looking for a more interactive, dashboard type of presentation to better engage the public.

Chapman said DEP will soon be hiring a Chief Customer Experience Officer whose sole job will be to engage with businesses, the public and stakeholders.

“We want to make sure that we’re engaging our businesses in terms of understanding that the process we have in permitting is actually meeting their expectations based upon what they hope the agency will allow them to do and similarly we need to be able to engage the public as well,” said Chapman.

“That could be how they think we're doing in terms of the state of environmental protection more broadly,” said Chapman.

Chapman said the tagline for the Center is-- Innovate, Fail (with purpose - take what we learn and move forward), Learn, Repeat, Deliver.”

Click Here for a copy of Chapman’s Presentation slides.

Click Here for 10-Point Plan To Speed Permit Reviews.

New Customer Service Strategy

Here’s a little more on the Acting Secretary’s new customer service strategy--

-- Establish Chief Customer Service Officer Position

-- Create a Uniform Standard of Excellence & Expectation for All Stakeholder Interactions

-- Identify Key KPI’s [Key Performance Indicators] Related to Customer/User Experience & Track with Center of Excellence

-- Provide Professional Customer Service Training for ALL Employees Who Interact with Stakeholders (Coaching On-Going)

-- Establish Customer Service Survey Tool with 3rd Party Independent Review that Provides Customer Satisfaction Score.

-- Enforce New Customer Service Cultural Values Around Customer Experience with Existing Human Resources & Reviews

-- Launch Strategic Communication & Marketing Campaign to Raise Awareness of Civil Service and User Experience Related Offerings for Stakeholders

Click Here for DEP’s New Customer Service Strategy

Environmental Justice

Here’s more on the new environmental justice strategy--

-- Define EJ broader to support all vulnerable populations.

-- Elevating it to a Special Deputy Secretary for environmental justice.

-- Adding a Deputy Director to create bandwidth across the state.

-- Adding an environmental justice regional coordinator per each of DEP’s six regions.

-- Proactive community outreach and engagement program.

-- Updated Environmental Justice Policy with a community outreach-first approach, enhanced Public Participation Process, and includes compliance with Title VI, in permitting, enforcement, grants, remediation, and climate change.

-- Design PennEnviroScreen, a new environmental justice mapping and screening tool that contains environmental, health, socioeconomic, and demographic indicators and is the main tool for mapping.

The new PennEnviroScreen mapping tool uses 32 different criteria to designate environmental justice areas, as DEP outlined it in a June 5 House hearing. They include--

-- Environmental Exposures: ozone, fine particulate, diesel particulate, toxic air emissions, toxic water emissions, pesticides, traffic density, compressor stations, children’s lead risk;

-- Environmental Effects: Conventional oil/natural gas wells, Unconventional oil/natural gas wells, proximity to railroads, land remediation, hazardous waste and storage sites, municipal waste sites, coal mining, impaired lakes and streams, abandoned mining concerns, flood risk;

-- Sensitive Populations: asthma, no health insurance, cancer, disability, heart disease;

-- Socioeconomic Population: low educational attainment, linguistic isolation, housing-burdened low-income households, poverty, unemployment, race, age over 64, age under 5.

Acting Secretary Negrin said at the CAC meeting, “I’ve asked the team to be really creative on some of that [the screening tool], because I also thought the federal definition [of environmental justice] was too narrow, and really focused on income.

“I think if you look at it honestly, 75% of Pennsylvania is environmental justice communities. So, we’re redefining what we call environmental justice, in that way, and in a way I think makes sense.

“That hopefully the feds watch, look, learn and give us some funding based on that, because right now their definition was just exploited communities, but I think that’s going to change.”

"It's not just about what we've done in the past with communities of color, but I can tell you, having spent so much time in Darlington Township [Beaver County site of the Norfolk Southern Train Derailment], that's an environmental justice community."

He made the same point in his Senate and House budget hearings in March.

In a follow up presentation on environmental justice at the CAC meeting, the point was made that DEP will release the mapping tool and a new proposed environmental justice policy on what happens during the permit process when a permit covered by the policy (not all of them will be) is in an environmental justice area at the same time.

DEP environmental justice staff also acknowledged in a Q/A during the presentation, without a change in law, DEP cannot deny a permit based solely on environmental justice grounds, like cumulative impact of another pollution source coming to a community.

They can enhance opportunities for participation, share more information, provide information in appropriate languages, teach people how to effectively submit comments, hold a hearing or information session, but not deny a permit solely on those grounds.

It would take passage of a bill like House Bill 652 (Bullock-D-Philadelphia) to do that.

On June 6, the House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee reported House bill 652 out of Committee for consideration by the full House. Read more here.

Click Here for DEP’s Environmental Justice Plan.

Read more here from June 5 House hearing on DEP’s Environmental Justice Plan.

New Enforcement Strategy

More on DEP’s new enforcement strategy--

-- Proactive Enforcement/Compliance Team

-- New Interface for Power BI Tool [Air Quality]

-- Enhanced Collaboration & Information Sharing with Federal Partners

-- Enhanced Civil Enforcement (Community/Restorative Penalties)

-- Prioritize Increased Inspections & Monitoring in Environmental Justice Communities

-- Comprehensive & Preventative Compliance Training for Stakeholders

-- Compliance Assistance Service Model to Support Entities in Violation & Reduce Time to Resolve violations and deficiencies

-- New Criminal Referral Policy (Improved Working with Attorney General)

Acting Secretary Negrin said a recent example of this policy was the $10 million consent agreement signed with the Shell Petrochemical Plant in Beaver County covering air pollution violations that included a $5 million environmental projects fund to benefit the local community. Read more here.

Click Here for DEP’s New Enforcement Strategy

Click Here for the Secretary’s Vision for DEP

Click Here DEP’s Organizational Chart

Visit DEP’s Citizens Advisory Council webpage for available handouts and more information. Questions should be directed to Max Schultz at maxschultz@pa.gov.

Related Articles - New Initiatives:

-- Gov. Shapiro’s Budget Proposes Major Initiative To Speed Up DEP Permit Reviews/ Inspections; Double Oil & Gas Fund Investment In State Parks/Forests Infrastructure [PaEN]

-- DEP Budget Testimony: Increasing Permitting Efficiency, Cleaning Up Legacy Pollution, Investing In Communities, Holding Companies Accountable [PaEN]

-- DEP Offers 10 Point Plan To Improve Permit Reviews; Climate/Energy Work Group Co-Chairs Announced; Work Group Formed To Prevent New Oil & Gas Well Abandonments [PaEN]

-- DEP Acting Secretary Wants To Encourage A Culture Of Being User-Friendly At DEP And Used The Train Derailment Response As An Example [PaEN]

-- DEP Acting Secretary Negrin: All Climate Change Is Local - We Are Guardians Of Our Neighborhoods, We Are To Act In Service To Our Neighbors [PaEN]

-- House Budget Hearing: Acting DEP Secretary Outlines His Views On Environmental Justice, Announces Fernando Treviño As Special Deputy For Environmental Justice [PaEN]

-- House Committee Reports Out Bill Requiring The Evaluation Of Cumulative Impacts Of Some New Pollution Sources On Communities Already Burdened By Pollution; And Other Bills [PaEN]

-- Republicans, Shale Gas Industry Oppose House Bill Requiring The Evaluation Of Cumulative Impacts Of Some New Pollution Sources On Communities Already Burdened By Pollution [PaEN]

NewsClips This Week:

-- StateImpactPA - Rachel McDevitt: Senate Republican Lawmakers Want To Replace ‘Protection’ With ‘Services’ In DEP’s Name

-- PA Capital-Star Guest Essay: What’s In A Name? When It Comes To PA Senate’s Vote Changing DEP’s Name, It Accomplishes Nothing - By Joseph Powers, Former DEP Acting Secretary, Executive Deputy