Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, January 16, 1992 TAG: 9201160388
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
CONSOLIDATION
IN VIRGINIA'S government, there exists no greater labyrinth perhaps than the environmental regulatory process that new and expanding industries must negotiate. It's a bureaucratic wilderness involving the State Water Control Board, the Department of Air Pollution Control and the Department of Waste Management.Frequently, applications for required permits get stranded in the three-agency maze for months or even longer, which means lost profits for the businesses and lost tax revenue for local governments.
Businesses and the localities - where a new factory and new jobs may have been won by economic-development efforts, only to get stalled in Richmond - have long argued that there must be a better way.
There is, and the Wilder administration has proposed it: a one-stop shop for the environmental permits, along with a streamlining of the regulatory process.
Under the proposal, the water, air and solid-waste agencies, as well as the state's advisory Council on the Environment, will be consolidated into a single, new Department of Environmental Quality. Call it Virginia's own EPA, if you must.
This is not a budget-squeezing proposal: The agencies will retain their current staffs and all their regulatory authorities and functions. It's a sensible move for better management of complex environmental issues that are growing more complex by the day, largely as a result of federal mandates but also because of new state policies for landfills and recycling.
On the other hand, cost-effectiveness should be a byproduct if data bases can be shared and duplicative inspections and paper-pushing by the three agencies' staffs can be eliminated. Certainly communications should be much improved - internally, among the regulators, and also between the state and regulated enterprises, and between the state and citizens concerned about permitted activities.
Wilder's proposal should not be considered a retreat from the state's commitment to environmental preservation and public health. On the contrary, better protection of Virginia's environment will likely result from the agency consolidation. As the governor said in his State of the Commonwealth address last week, "pollution knows no boundaries."
It may be stopped in the air only to show up in the water. It is a moveable beast, which can best be contained if it's in the sight of regulators looking out for the total environment and not just a piece of the turf.