A 166-page document outlining ideas for streamlining Washington's natural resource management system contains many good suggestions, said Gary Chandler, AWB vice president of government affairs.
But Chandler, writing to Gov. Chris Gregoire, cautions against using the search for regulatory efficiencies as a chance to change environmental protection laws, either by weakening or strengthening them.
"We do not ... believe this effort addresses much of the necessary regulatory reform that remains to be done following the passage of 1995's HB 1010, and would draw a distinction between the two topics," Chandler said an Oct. 16 letter.
The letter goes on to detail AWB's positions on many of the ideas, which range from major restructuring of state agencies to streamlining permitting and compliance activities.
On the idea of restructuring state agencies, AWB believes there is merit to some of the possibilities, but needs more time to fully consider how various groups would be affected and declined to take a position on which model might work best.
The group looked at models in a variety of states, including Rhode Island, which has just one state agency for all of its natural resource functions, and other states with two or three agencies.
However, Chandler's letter makes it clear that AWB has serious concerns about the "Unified State Vision," an idea aimed at increasing collaboration and reducing competition among the various state agencies.
"We are unclear about how four or five existing state regulatory agencies with different legislative mandates, different constituencies, different missions and different subject matter jurisdictions would create a unified policy vision for natural resource management," Chandler wrote. "We believe that such an approach is unworkable and would lead to confusion as opposed to clarity."
AWB supports the idea of GIS data consolidation, and strongly supports another idea of using the 20th anniversary of the state's Growth Management Act to conduct a review and update. It's important, though, that an independent party conduct such a review, according to AWB.
Chandler suggests the state Auditor's Office would be a good choice.
The 26 ideas were developed by the Natural Resources Subcabinet, a group that includes state natural resource agency directors as well as policy and budget staff for Gregoire and Pubic Lands Commissioner Peter Goldmark.
They are not a set of recommendations, according to the report's executive summary. Officials will gather public comments and concerns through Oct. 28. Gregoire and Goldmark will review the comments before making any final decisions on reform priorities, according to state officials.
Comments may be e-mailed to resource.reform@ofm.wa.gov or submitted electronically here.
The complete document, "Ideas to Improve Management of Washington's Natural Resources," is available here.
The full text of AWB's comment letter is available here.
