by Anne Galloway vtdigger.org The Shumlin administration has proposed a $3.16 million increase in environmental permitting fees as part of the fiscal year 2013 budget.Under the plan, Entergy Corp., the owner of Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant in Vernon, would pay $543,000, or $333,000 more for its wastewater discharge permit. IBM would see a $2,500 increase in its air quality control permit and would pay a total of $15,000, if the so-called ‘fee bill’ is approved by the Legislature.
Most of the price increases for air and water quality permits range from $14 to around $500. The proposed price schedule includes new fees for potable water supply and wastewater permits.
Commissioners Patrick Berry, left, and David Mears speaking at the Statehouse on Tuesday. VTD/Josh Larkin
David Mears, commissioner of the Department of Environmental Conservation, told lawmakers on Friday that the increases are necessary because the federal government plans to cut funding for state grants by 10 percent over the next three years.
‘Instead of cutting their own operations as they’ve been cut, the Environmental Protection Agency is passing the cuts on to the states,’ Mears said.
There has been no appreciable increase in fees in at least five years, Mears said in testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee.
Mears asked his department to review all of the state’s environmental permitting fees in order to ‘step toward stabilizing the Department of Environmental Conservation’s budget over the long haul.’ The department, he said, has relied too heavily on the state’s General Fund, the federal government and certain fees for financial support. When the economy took a gainer, the department’s sources of income started to falter.
‘I couldn’t bring anything less than a full proposal to restore balance,’ Mears said.
Members of the powerful House tax committee asked the commissioner what businesses get for the fee. ‘They get a permit,’ Mears quipped.
Later, Rep. Janet Ancel, D-Calais and chair of the committee, said the fee ‘ought to reflect the cost of something.’
Mears said all fees are collected together to pay for the overall program costs. ‘I can’t pull out one fee and say it’s applied to this cost,’ he said.
Fees are used to pay for state monitoring of federal pollution requirements. Before the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act became law in the 1970s there were no pollution controls on companies. After the legislation was enacted, the federal government authorized states to create programs that would demonstrate water quality and ambient air quality. For the first time, toxic chemicals, such as sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide, came under the purview of state and federal governments.
Companies self report air and water pollution data to the state. The Department of Environmental Conservation is charged with ensuring that businesses have reported the information correctly. The state also ensures that companies have the right the equipment and processes in place to limit and monitor pollution. The department also conducts independent testing, according to Mears.
Permits generally fall in two categories: permit applications, which cover the cost of environmental reviews of equipment and monitoring processes used by a pollution emitter; and operating fees for DEC inspections, compliance and monitoring work.
Mears said the department is too short-staffed to handle more than one new large project application at a time and in the future this could hamper the permitting process, leading to development delays.
Increases in wetlands regulations fees for large, time-consuming projects, such as the Kingdom Community Wind Project on Lowell Mountain, would help to defray the cost of staff time. Mears proposes $64,510 and $47,676 increases in permit costs for the 401 certification process for large developments that affect wetlands.
‘The (small) number of permit-writers is an impediment to development,’ Mears said. ‘A substantive increase in fees is a hedge against the fear of loss of federal discretionary grants.’
Fees for potable water supply and wastewater permits vary, depending on the size of the project. Permits for small projects (roughly 2,000 permits a year) would cost between $180 and $580. Potable water and wastewater permits for the largest projects with a design flow of 10,000 gallons would cost $9,500 (about three such permits are issued in a year). Eighty-two permits that have design flows of between 2,000 and 6,500 gallons would cost about $2,000. Fees for about eight of the permits to be issued that have flows in the mid-range would be $5,000.
The Department of Motor Vehicles is also seeking to raise fees. Brian Searles, secretary of the Agency of Transportation, said the total proposed license, registration and title fee increase of $6.3 million is a consumer price index adjustment.
January 16, 2012 vtdigger.org
Permit fees would go up under Shumlin administration proposal
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