No Cost Stimulus Plan
Twenty four months. That is the average time it takes to get most major industrial greenfield projects from the concept phase through the permitting process in this country. Twenty four months. Twenty four months of no engineering, no buying of equipment, no fabrication, and no construction. All of which means no jobs.
In fact no major commitment of any project’s funds occurs until the permit is issued, save the cost of lawyers and environmental consultants deployed to negotiate with various local, state and federal permitting agencies. And for what purpose? The regulators have a fiduciary responsibility to verify that projects conform to local zoning, applicable codes, and environmental requirements.
The fact is that permit applications, as submitted, typically contain best or maximum available technology for environmental controls. But in the twenty four months it takes to accomplish regulatory review, public notice, and issuing the permit, little, if any, changes are typically made and incorporated into a project. Certainly no major environmental controls. Regulators respond to criticism with legitimate arguments that they are undermanned, that projects are complex and they have no relief from requirements to carefully screen projects, and that they are subject to criticism no matter what they do — from groups on all sides of the issue.
Inexperience and indecision are also a factor. And why not — it’s hard to find reviewers who are expert on everything. But that burden could be relieved by taking advantage of another regulatory avenue available through state engineering boards — put more onus for a compliant work product on Professional Engineer’s (PEs). PEs work hard to earn their seals and they mean something.
Some projects have been held up recently after a permit was issued. The interferences range from petty harassment to preposterous. Locally, a commercial enterprise acquired a neighboring property, with a 2000 sq. ft. block building of contemporary construction. The new owner checked for asbestos, received a demolition permit from the township and began demolition. DEP stopped the work and assessed a $10,000 fine, which was contested and reduced. The rationale — the owner should have known that the township permit was not enough. Perhaps not enough people are tapping the brakes on their projects?
Farther afield, consider the development of a new coal fired power project in Utah. After the US EPA’s Denver office granted the environmental permit to Deseret Power Electric Cooperative, an environmental activist group (Sierra Club) challenged the permit before the US EPA’s appeals panel because the issued permit did not address carbon dioxide emissions controls. And in due course, the US EPA’s appeals panel agreed and rejected the federal permit, because EPA’s Denver office failed to adequately support its decision to issue a permit for the Bonanza plant without requiring controls on carbon dioxide, placing the $300M project in limbo. The basis for the decision is a 2007 case in which twelve states and several cities of the United States brought suit against the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to force that federal agency to regulate carbon dioxide and other “greenhouse gases” as pollutants. The decision did not address the validity of global warming, but determined that greenhouse gases fit within the Clean Air Act’s definition of air pollutants, that EPA has authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, that EPA’s rationale for not regulating was inadequate, and EPA was required to revisit and more substantively justify why it should not regulate greenhouse gases, or change its position.
Nonetheless, carbon dioxide is still not a currently regulated pollutant under the federal Clean Air Act. So now an owner must anticipate what might happen in the future at the time of submitting a permit application and spend money on control mechanisms for contaminants that are not currently regulated?
Instead of spending hundreds of billions of tax payer dollars via these recent ‘Stimulus Bills’ and further mortgaging all of our futures all in the name of creating and maintaining jobs, why don’t we do the sensible thing and simply reduce the time it takes to issue a federal permit. There are hundreds of billions of dollars ready to be spent by private industry right now. Hundreds of thousands of jobs in limbo awaiting a permit. You want a stimulus plan that will work, at no cost to the tax payer? Reduce the time to permit. How do you do that? One way is eliminate redundant functions between regulators and professional engineers. Does anyone have a better idea?
Twenty four months.
Really.
Dave Moniot
President & CEO
Venture Engineering & Construction
Pittsburgh, PA