LANSING – The Department of Environmental Quality will be required to complete process improvement of major programs under HB 4016 , and state departments responsible for routine inspections would be directed to randomly select persons or companies for performing inspections under HB 4017.
Both bills were unanimously reported Wednesday from the House Regulatory Reform Committee.
The DEQ would be expected to complete process improvement of at least one major program, such as permit or regulatory, by Feb. 1, 2012, and of at least two each subsequent year until process improvement has been completed for all major programs. The DEQ would have to consider using peer reviews from by other EPA Region 5 states and benchmark analyses.
Process improvement would have to use process mapping and be conducted by a team that included no less than two licensed facilitators, a representative of people regulated under the program and a member of the general public affected by the program.
The DEQ would also have to develop metrics for environmental impacts and process performance including its per-permit cost to administer the program, the timeliness of the permit process from the receipt of an application to approval or denial and a review of service practices that affect regulated persons and the general public. Each DEQ division would also be required to conduct service practices surveys of persons it regulates and the general public. Survey results would have to be posted on the DEQ website by Feb. 1, 2012.
Under the Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Act, several state departments provide oversight and regulation of various programs and activities including: municipal sewage systems, endangered species protection, watercraft, motor vehicle fleets and the use and handling of pesticides.
HB 4017 would use a stratified random sampling process that would give potential inspectors an equal chance of being selected. The bill would not apply to an inspections performed in response to a complaint from a third party, in response to evidence that a violation had occurred or to follow-up inspections performed to determine whether previous violations had been corrected.
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