Connecticut’s sour economy is presenting a rare opportunity for making the state’s regulatory environment more business friendly.
As part of their economic development strategies, both Democrats and Republicans say they want to streamline the permitting process across state agencies and remove or alter regulations that are duplicative, outdated, or in some cases overbearing to businesses.
One proposal by House Republicans, for example, would create a one-stop permitting and approval process within the Department of Economic and Community Development. The proposal would allow DECD to prioritize economic development projects that create jobs and expedite those through the permitting process.
“I hear from clients all the time that Connecticut is an ugly place to do business because of the regulatory landscape,” said Rep. Mike Alberts, R-Woodstock, who is also a commercial banker at Simsbury Bank. “The state needs to make it easier to start and maintain a business.”
Meanwhile, Senate Democrats have called for a formal hearing to review all state regulations and their impact on small businesses.
And Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell has started a task force that will examine the permitting process and recommend ways to cut through red tape and eliminate backlogs. The task force will be made up of consumers as well as business, labor and municipal interests. It will present its findings in March.
Sen. Gary LeBeau, the East Hartford Democrat who is co-chair of the commerce committee, said he is particularly interested in streamlining processes and regulations in the Department of Environmental Protection, an agency advocates say is among the least business friendly.
LeBeau recalled a $500,000 construction project of the Felt Road Bridge in South Windsor, for example, which took a year and a half to get permitting. He said that process should have only taken about 90 days.
Michael Gantick, South Windsor’s public works director, said the application for the project got lost between the Department of Transportation and DEP, which set back construction for months. The bridge was completed last year.
LeBeau said if the bridge was financed with private money, the long delay would have killed the project.
“Those are the kinds of things that drive businesspeople crazy,” he said.
When the Connecticut Business & Indsutry Association recently polled 984 business owners, 68 percent of respondents said that if they were to expand or relocate their business, they would do so outside of Connecticut. Taxes and regulatory costs were key factors in their gripes with the state, the survey found.
“Clearly our state’s ability to create jobs and achieve economic prosperity are related to our having a regulatory climate that achieves policy goals in a manner that does not unreasonably burden either the state or our businesses,” said Eric Brown, a lobbyist for the CBIA.
He said the CBIA is pushing several bills that aim to lessen the regulatory burden of the DEP in particular. He said too many of the agency’s proposals related to permitting or new regulations don’t consider economic impact or the concerns of the business community.
The CBIA is supporting a bill designed to place DEP’s guidance or regulatory rulings under scrutiny by the legislature’s Regulatory Review Committee.
“I think the problem with DEP is that too often it views itself as an advocate for the environment,” Brown said. “But the DEP’s responsibility is not just to the environment, it’s also to the state and economy.”
Another pet peeve, especially among manufacturers, is the water discharge permitting process, Brown said.
Brown said regulations currently in place, require DEP to review all the engineering involved in a plant’s water discharge process. Brown said that process is cumbersome, inefficient and costs businesses time and money.
Instead, Brown suggested DEP take a more performance-based approach, concentrating solely on the environmental performance of the facility rather than its environmental engineering.
“They should not spend all the time reviewing, modifying and approving the engineering of the pollution equipment,” Brown said. “They should only focus on the environmental performance of the facility.”
Amey Marrella, commissioner of DEP, said her agency is responsive to making improvements to processes when that can be done without lowering environmental standards.
For example, she said the agency has launched a LEAN program to reduce the time it takes to act on applications, and has moved toward electronic reporting to reduce cumbersome paperwork procedures.
“The key point here is that environmental protection and economic prosperity are complementary — not competing — interests,” said Marrella, who added that lowering the bar for environmental regulation in the short term does not make sense in the longer term.
