A best-in-class regulatory system requires agencies to periodically review their regulations with an eye toward what regulations remain necessary and which require revision. This week’s Highlights features two success stories involving agencies that have tailored their regulations to impose the smallest possible burden.

 

The Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services tailors its regulations based on facility type.

Writing good regulations is an art form. Saying the same thing, or similar things, in too many different places can cause confusion. However, applying a one-size-fits-all standard to differently situated parties can result in unnecessary burdens.

The Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services (DBHDS) recently concluded that its rules governing licensed providers combined too many different provider types into just two chapters. It therefore initiated the process of breaking those two chapters into five different chapters (see, e.g., this action, which is one of seven), so that it can more clearly specify which specific requirements apply to each type of provider. By being more precise, DBHDS will alleviate unnecessary burdens on providers while still ensuring that all necessary health and safety requirements apply.

 

The Department of Environmental Quality renews six general permits.

Permits tend to come in two varieties. An individual permit involves case-by-case determinations to set requirements for the regulated activity. A general permit, by contrast, is more like a driver’s license: the requirements for the activity are set in advance in the general permit regulation, and if you meet the requirements, you qualify for the permit.

The Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) issues many general permits. Each general permit regulation expires after a set term, usually five or ten years, and DEQ must decide whether to renew it. If DEQ does not renew a general permit regulation, the more burdensome individual permitting process applies by default.

Recently, DEQ’s State Water Control Board found that it could renew general permit programs in six different areas, such as domestic sewage discharges of less than 1,000 gallons per day, and seafood processing facilities. DEQ also took the opportunity to streamline excessively burdensome requirements associated with those permits, making changes such as shifting from a quarterly to a biannual reporting period for the seafood processing facilities general permit.

Other permitting agencies should take a careful look at their individual permits and decide whether they, too, can alleviate burdens by shifting to a general permitting process.