By law, application fees and penalties collected by DEP for almost all programs are put in special accounts dedicated to funding only those programs. Those accounts were set up in each law because the industries and local governments who pay the fees did not want their money going into the “black hole” of the General Fund to balance the state budget.
The alleged purpose of House Bill 1755 is to take away an “incentive” for DEP “to assess as many of these fees, fines, and penalties as possible, regardless of whether these charges are necessary or fair.”
In reality, this is just another attempt by House Republicans to cut funding to DEP for environmental protection programs.
General Fund support to fund DEP has been cut by 40 percent since 2003 which resulted in a nearly 30 percent reduction in DEP staff. Only recently did the General Fund appropriation increase beyond what was in the 1994-95 state budget-- 27 years ago.
DEP’s budget now depends on application fees and federal grants to fund environmental protection programs because the General Assembly and governors since Rendell wanted it that way.
In DEP’s FY 2019-20 budget, for example, less than 20 percent of DEP’s funding came from the General Fund, 30 percent from the federal government and 50 percent from permits fees and whatever penalties were assessed. [Read more here]
Just to be clear-- legislators and the governor only support 20 percent of DEP’s budget.
Because of the cuts over the past 15 years, federal agencies have issued warnings to DEP that it doesn’t have the resources to meet minimum federal standards to administer certain federal programs like Safe Drinking Water, Air Quality, Surface Mining, Stormwater, Chesapeake Bay Watershed cleanup obligations and others.
DEP reviews its permit application fees program by program every three years and produces a report on each fee that includes current program costs, efforts to reduce operating expenses and identifies any gap between current fee revenues and expenses. [Example of fee report]
The report makes a recommendation on whether to increase fees or keep them the same and presents the reports to the 20 member Environmental Quality Board, which includes legislators, citizens and state agency heads.
If fees are recommended to be increased, they are increased through adoption of a regulation change that takes an additional two years.
The proposed and final regulations are presented to one or more DEP advisory committees for comment, are adopted by the EQB, reviewed by the House and Senate and the Independent Regulatory Review Commission and opened for public comment.
DEP’s fee reports do not include any consideration of penalties or fines.
[Just for fun read: What If The Senate And House Had To Adopt Laws Like DEP Adopts Regulations.]
Fines and penalties for each program are calculated based on penalty assessment policies adopted by each program based on the severity of the violation, the willfulness of the violation and other factors. [Example of penalty assessment policy.]
Funding the agency never enters into these penalty considerations. It’s a myth promoted by Senate and House Republicans for their own political purposes.
This is just another move in the three-part conservative Republican war against environmental programs waged over more than a decade in Pennsylvania--
-- Starving environmental agencies for funding so they have to cut staff and programs and then turn around and say they can’t do their job [they’ve successfully done that];
-- Adding even more layers of bureaucracy and procedures to block environmental regulations, reduce environmental standards and give regulated entities more control over these programs [Read more here]; and
-- Using every chance they get to cut funding to support community-based projects to protect and restore the environment, improve recreation opportunities and land conservation efforts that real people-- voters-- overwhelmingly support [Read more here].
House Bill 1755 was referred to the House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee. Republicans on the Committee are very likely to move the bill.
Rep. Daryl Metcalfe (R-Butler) serves as Majority Chair of the House Environmental Committee and can be contacted by calling 717-783-1707 or sending email to: dmetcalf@pahousegop.com. Rep. Greg Vitali (D-Delaware) serves as Minority Chair and can be contacted by calling 717-787-7647 or sending email to: gvitali@pahouse.net.
Related Articles:
-- Where Did The $2.93 Billion In Environmental Funding The General Assembly Diverted Or Cut Go?
-- PA Environmental Defense Foundation: Files Petition In Court To Order Commonwealth To Return $1.3 Billion In Revenue From State Forest Drilling Unconstitutionally Transferred From Oil & Gas Lease Fund
-- Growing Greener Coalition: American Rescue Plan For Water & Green Infrastructure
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