Minnesota Governor Aims to Accelerate Environmental Permitting

Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton issued an executive order on January 24, directing the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (Minnesota DNR) and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) to expedite the issuance of permits managed by the agencies.

Under the order, the agencies are to issue permitting decisions within 30 days after the approval of an environmental impact statement or within 150 days after the permitting application is deemed complete for all other permits.  According to the MPCA, the median wait time for a permit in 2008 and 2009 was 228 days.  As of December 2010, the MPCA had 664 permit applications pending for more than 150 days.  The order sets specific timing goals, but does not mandate that they are met.

In addition, the order also requires the commissioners of the Minnesota DNR and the MPCA to:

• enable environmental review and permit applications to be submitted electronically;
• issue a progress report to the governor within six months as to whether the goals are being met along with further administrative recommendations to reduce decision time; and
• immediately report to the governor any permitting decisions that are not made within 30 days after an environmental impact statement is approved,

The MPCA commissioner is also ordered to:

• develop recommendations to the governor to amend the Minnesota water discharge permitting statutes and regulations to permit construction projects to begin prior to permits being issued; and
• justify the necessity of more rigorous air quality, hazardous waste, or water quality regulations when the commissioner proposes regulations that more stringent than similar federal standards.

Streamlining the permitting process was identified as a top priority by the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce as well as the GOP leadership in the Minnesota Legislature.  A plan put forward by GOP legislators would also allow project proposers to prepare environmental impact statements and would give the Minnesota Court of Appeals original jurisdiction to hear challenges to environmental review decisions as opposed to the district courts.

Assuming the executive order is published in the State Register on January 31, the order will go into effect on February 15.

Businesses with pending or anticipated permit applications and those undertaking environmental review are encouraged to follow these developments closely.