Shovel-Ready Series: How Our Permit Process Is Costing Us Jobs

[marmar]

from the Infrastructurist:



Shovel-Ready Series: How Our Permit Process Is Costing Us Jobs
Posted on Monday October 24th by Melissa Lafsky


For the past few weeks, we’ve been examining the state of U.S. infrastructure as it relates to job-creation — a critical issue that’s capturing the attention of policymakers and constituents alike, particularly as unemployment levels and crumbling U.S. infrastructure show no sign of improving.

Of course, in addition to “What projects should we build?”another critical question is “How can we improve the process for the projects we do decide to build?”

The fact is that our current requirements for permitting weigh America’s building process down like a boulder. Taking on a major project such as a bridge means an automatic 5 years of environmental reviews, nonstop treks through permitting regulations, and other delays presented by all levels of government. All this hassle is a big reason why we squeezed so few new projects out of the 2009 stimulus — repaving roads that already exist is much easier to get past permitting rules and Congressional constituencies than building something big and new.

It wasn’t always this way — if we’d had this much red tape in the past, it’s quite possible that the Hoover Dam, or the Interstate Highway System, or countless other projects would never have been built. Our system has evolved into this circuitous mess that places hurdles in front of any large project — and it’s precisely these projects that will bring the greatest benefit to our communities and create the most jobs. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.infrastructurist.com/2011/10/24/shovel-ready-series-how-our-permit-process-is-costing-us-jobs/

[Exilednight]

1. Yeah, just what we need, less regulation.

:sarcasm:

[marmar]

3. I don't think that was really the point of the piece.

nt

[JVS]

2. Seems to me they need to hire more people to process the paperwork.

These sound like good $20/hr desk jobs.

[marmar]

4. Agreed.....I bet a lot of it is paperwork delays (from already overburdened employees)

nt

[quaker bill]

8. Better than $20/hr, but not desk only

If you have the right degree, you can earn 30 to 40/hr, but you will need to wade in some swamps to do it (down here, with alligators and snakes).

Yes, GW Bush gutted the staff and BHO has only partially restored it. The positions are pretty competitive and it takes some luck, skills, and experience to land one. But it isn't a bad living.

[ChandlerJr]

5. Just maybe someone should have looked closer at the environmental

damage the Hoover Dam has caused or the Urban Sprawl that the interstate highway system has created.

More regulation not less, people not questionable "progress".

[LARED]

6. The reality is that a significant number of permits and regulations

are simply revenue generating gimicks for the government.

[waddirum]

13. umm no

Permits and regulations are to avoid things like putting a hazardous pipeline through a sensitive aquifer. They are absolutely necessary for a civilized society.

[JDPriestly]

16. Local communities have the right to voice their concerns about these projects.

Environmental reviews protect our resources and our communities for future generations.

Troublesome, maybe, but if those who want to begin these projects make it a regular practice to consider the impact on the environment and on communities before they request permits, they may find that they can ameliorate some of the worst societal and environmental collateral damage and save a lot of time in the process.

Meet with all strata of all communities that will be affected by your project. Get their impact. Demonstrate to them what the benefits of your project will be. Learn to work with the public and the environment to reduce the time it takes for YOUR project to pass regulatory review.

It's a matter of being proactive and thinking in advance about how to avoid the negative side of your project.

We have to have environmental and safety reviews. This is the 21st century. Get with it.

[quaker bill]

7. Professionally speaking

as someone who actually manages an environmental permitting program, there are only two reasons a project takes 5 years to permit:

1. The people filing the permit applications (usually contracted consultants) have absolutely no clue how to meet the laws and prefer argument over solutions.

2. The project has substantial adverse environmental impacts and strong public opposition.

Before managing a government environmental permitting program, I was one of the contracted consultants. I made a habit of reading the rules, court decisions interpreting them, and the latest guidance memos from the executive branch. I then used this information to work with the project designers to address the relevant questions, collected the necessary data and produced applications that were as complete and current as possible. I never had an application process run more than 6 months, to include state, local, and federal permits.

There is the rare and occasional consulting goldmine project that because of its improbable nature is all but impossible to permit. Locate something in the habitat of enough endangered species, and propose to bulldoze enough pristine wetlands in the process, and you can be hung up in the process for a very long time, and then get denied. This is rare, but it does happen.

The processes can be streamlined a bit here and there without diluting resource protection, but when presented with a well designed and represented project are generally quite efficient.

The unfortunate more normal course is for folks to present a half baked project very poorly and then blame the permitting process and civil servants for their flaws.

[hedgehog]

9. My daughter runs a permitting process - she says the same thing.

Those who follow the rules and provide all the needed info generally get through pretty quickly. Others send in half the info needed, then fail to send more info when requested, then bitch about how long the process takes.

[quaker bill]

10. Because complaining about having to meet the law

like everyone else doesn't sound at all flattering. Complaining about a inefficient bureaucrat is ever so much more popular.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

17. more like consultants milking it for everything it is worth

I worked on a project that was easily delayed by a year because the Denver based consultants kept submitting stuff that went straight into the trash in Sacramento because they had done it wrong, they easily made a million dollars resubmitting incorrect materials over and over again.

They didn't seem ignorant to how it was done in California, they just knew they could get away with it and muttering something about "those fucking eco-communists in California" would be a sufficient explanation to their client.

[quaker bill]

11. Permit processes create jobs too

When I went to school to be a botanist/ecologist, the career path was getting an advanced degree and teaching it to others. Now there is an industry in the private and public sector that hires botanists and ecologists to protect the environment.

[JCMach1]

12. Eliminate pointless paperwork as opposed to 'real' regulation

simplify simplify simplify...

It is possible.

In many places the gauntlet is such that it almost takes a lawyer to get a business started these days. That just adds expense for someone starting a small business. Also, some regulations were actually put in-place to protect bigger businesses, especially in the restaurant industry. This is why you see so many franchises, because many would be business people thow-up their hands and surrender because it is the path of least resistance.

[hedgehog]

14. Yet Obama was accu of caving to the Republicans when

he dropped some regulations after a review!

[JCMach1]

15. Try opening ANY kind of business these days... and you will see

examples of this.

[quaker bill]

18. Most regulation is created to prevent

the worst case scenario. They are usually written in the shadow of the worst case scenario having happened. Typically 95 percent or more of the folks trying to do business would never go there even if the regulations did not exist, but because someone had the lack of ethics to do it once, the rest bear the burden of proving they won't.

Once a rule gets in place, removing it is a real challenge. Over the decades massive piles of code are created in this process. Most every single bit of it was well intended but it adds up to a morass that often requires a lawyer to untangle.

You are correct though. There are bits of code, particularly certain certification codes, that are lobbied for by the existing industry to prevent new competition.

The question with simplification is to not throw the baby out with the bathwater....