This part shall be known, and may be cited, as the Environmental Protection Permit Reform Act of 1993.
PermitsLegislative Findings and Intent
Section § 71000
This law is called the Environmental Protection Permit Reform Act of 1993. It's a section of legislation related to improving how environmental protection permits are handled.
Environmental Protection Permit Reform Permit Process
Section § 71001
California is committed to reducing pollution and safeguarding public health by setting strict environmental standards. These programs have been very successful, even with the state's growing population. To keep meeting these goals, it's crucial for different environmental programs to work together more efficiently, ensuring pollution isn't just moved elsewhere.
However, as environmental regulations have increased, so have the permits required, leading to higher costs and delays for businesses and government agencies. This has resulted in overlapping and conflicting permit requirements. To address these issues, environmental permits should be processed locally when possible, with consistent regional boundaries.
The division's goal is to make it easier for businesses and agencies to meet environmental laws quickly while still protecting health and safety. This involves streamlining the permit process for better communication and coordination, allowing the permitting process to run simultaneously instead of one step at a time.
The Legislature hereby finds and declares all of the following:
(a)CA Public Resources Code § 71001(a) California’s environmental protection programs have established strict standards to reduce pollution and protect the public health and safety and the environment. The single purpose programs instituted to achieve these standards have been among the most successful efforts in the world, and have produced significant gains in protecting California’s environment in the face of substantial population growth.
(b)CA Public Resources Code § 71001(b) Continued progress to achieve the environmental standards in face of continued population growth will require greater coordination between the single purpose environmental programs and more efficient operation of these programs overall. Pollution must be prevented and controlled and not simply transferred to another media or another place. This goal can only be achieved by maintaining the current environmental protection standards and by greater integration of the existing programs.
(c)CA Public Resources Code § 71001(c) As the number of environmental laws and regulations have grown in California, so have the number of permits required of business and government. This regulatory burden has significantly added to the cost and time needed to obtain essential operating permits in California. The increasing number of individual permits and permit authorities has generated the continuing potential for conflict, overlap, and duplication between the various state, local, and federal environmental permits.
(d)CA Public Resources Code § 71001(d) To ensure that local needs and environmental conditions receive the proper attention, the issuance of environmental permits should continue to be made, to the extent feasible, at the regional and local levels of the environmental programs. To establish the framework for coordination among the regional offices of the environmental protection programs, consistency in regional boundaries should be achieved to the maximum extent practicable.
(e)CA Public Resources Code § 71001(e) The purpose of this division is to require the Secretary for Environmental Protection to institute new, efficient procedures which will assist businesses and public agencies in complying with the environmental quality laws in an expedited fashion, without reducing protection of public health and safety and the environment.
(f)CA Public Resources Code § 71001(f) Those procedures need to provide a permit process that promotes effective dialogue and ensures ease in the transfer and clarification of technical information, while preventing duplication. It is necessary that the procedures establish a process for preliminary and ongoing meetings between the applicant, the consolidated permit agency, and the participating permit agencies, but do not preclude the applicant or participating permit agencies from individually coordinating with each other.
(g)CA Public Resources Code § 71001(g) It is necessary, to the maximum extent practicable, that the procedures established in this division ensure that the consolidated permit agency process and applicable permit requirements and criteria are integrated and run concurrently, rather than consecutively.
environmental protection pollution reduction coordination
