New Database Has Key Ingredients for Streamlining Restoration Permitting & Buying Environmental Outcomes
Today, the Environmental Policy Innovation Center launched an interactive database of 49 legislation, policies, programs, and case studies that offer new pathways to buying environmental outcomes, and finding ways to reduce delays in permitting environmental restoration projects. The database is a helpful resource for policymakers and agency staff at the state and federal level. The information provides the raw ‘ingredients’ that could be used to replicate Pay for Success and Restoration Permit Streamlining in other contexts.
You can filter, sort, and even download the database. Have new ideas to add to the database? You can submit additional information here. The database is a work in progress, and will be updated at least every six months.
EPIC’s subject matter experts provide their top key ingredients. Additional information on these ingredients can be found in the database.
Key Ingredients for Pay for Success
1) Promote interagency cooperation like Ohio’s ResultsOHIO Program. Ohio’s General Assembly passed a bill in 2019 that created the ResultsOhio program, a PFS program for state projects, housed within the Treasury Department. Under the program, a state agency, nonprofit, or other organization can propose a project to the ResultsOhio program. ResultsOhio staff analyze projects to determine whether or not they are well suited for a PFS contract structure, or if traditional procurement methods are preferable. Projects selected to continue are presented to the Ohio legislature during state budget discussions, requiring approval from the legislature in order to issue the contract.
ResultsOHIO is also built to serve as an in-house consultant to other Ohio state agencies that wish to execute Pay for Success contracts. While this function appears to be under-utilized, EPIC is excited that this facet of the program exists and hopes agencies will be compelled to use it.
2) Significantly cut project timelines like North Carolina’s Division of Mitigation Services. To many professionals in the restoration field, North Carolina is viewed as the progenitor of environmental Pay for Success. The state’s Division of Mitigation Services (DMS) in lieu fee (ILF) program purchases environmental outcomes to enable environmentally responsible economic development. This state-wide program is designed to help both private and public entities meet wetland mitigation and nutrient offset requirements under the federal Clean Water Act, and uses a watershed approach to maximize the environmental returns of mitigation investments.
3) Put your money where your mouth is like Maryland’s Clean Water Commerce Act. In 2017, Maryland passed the Clean Water Commerce Act (CWCA), first-of-its-kind legislation that allowed the well capitalized Bay Restoration Fund to buy the most cost effective nutrient pollution or sediment reductions through a competitive, Pay for Success (PFS) process. The program was originally very limited and focused almost entirely on upgrades to wastewater treatment plants. Agricultural projects were statutorily excluded, but one stream restoration project was funded under the program and a seed was planted. In 2021, the CWCA was dramatically upgraded to purchase nitrogen reduction outcomes from a much broader array of green infrastructure projects–including on agricultural land–and funding doubled to $20 million a year.
For more information about Pay for Success, contact Grace Edinger.
Additional EPIC resources on Pay for Success:
Pay for Success 101 Resource Guide
Purchasing Environmental Progress
Procurement Doesn’t Need to be a Chokepoint
What environmental procurement can learn from the economics of Dungeons & Dragons
Key Ingredients for Restoration Permit Streamlining
1) Use categorical exclusions for environmentally-beneficial restoration projects. As EPIC has previously written, “Agencies are allowed to exempt lots of minor actions from review and even some major actions that have predictable impacts that someone has determined don't deserve a full review. And there are literally thousands of categorical exclusions under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) (e.g. including four for different types of picnics).” An agency can adopt individual categorical exclusions, but new changes to NEPA “now lets agencies adopt categorical exclusions from their peers, as long as they talk about it beforehand and share information about doing so with the public. This is a great change that could allow lots of exclusions that benefit nature restoration be used by multiple agencies.”
2) Adopt technology like PEEP. Virginia’s Permitting Enhancement and Evaluation Platform, or PEEP is “... a publicly-accessible online platform where anyone can search and find details about a permit and where it is in the approval process” (see Environmental Policy Innovation Center’s case study: If You Can Track a Pizza, You Can Track a Permit). PEEP automatically creates Gantt charts and target deadlines for parts of the approval process. You can always see whose desk the application is on and it is easy for staff to enter a timestamp (apparently in less than one minute). There are automatic reminders when the deadline is approaching. Reports can be generated to find out where the system is gumming up. Overall, PEEP is an elegant solution for project management and public transparency and we’d love to see something like this adopted by the Corps. Do yourself a favor and watch this adorable video about PEEP.
3) Keep the door open for projects of any size and type. As EPIC has previously written, “California’s Cutting Green Tape initiative, which encompasses numerous state executive orders, legislation, permitting and grant program procedure changes, sets a laudable goal of expediting restoration projects. In its early days, streamlining was only available for small restoration projects and excluded habitat offset projects that were created to offset permitted impacts.” EPIC maintains that all restoration projects - whatever the size, whatever the purpose - should be putting more funds into Nature rather than paperwork. In the case of California, the state shifted their policies over the past years to open the door to more projects. “For example, an August 2022 statewide ‘programmatic’ general order for 401 certifications for restoration projects no longer bars restoration for compliance purposes: “Restoration projects serving as mitigation for a related project or activity may be enrolled under this Order.” The definition of restoration - no matter the purpose - is any project “that would result in a net increase in aquatic or riparian resource area functions and/or services.” The size limit was also removed (State Water Resources Control Board General Order WQ 2022-0048-DWQ). In September of 2022, a Programmatic Biological Opinion that was created to streamline ESA Section 7 consultation for Californian restoration projects has no text barring restoration for compliance purposes. Similar to the 401 general order, the project must create “a net increase in aquatic, riparian, floodplain, wetland, or coastal dune resource functions and/or services” for projects to be eligible. We applaud these steps to focus on the outcomes of restoration.”
For more information about Restoration Permit Streamlining, contact Becca Madsen.
Additional EPIC resources on Restoration Permit Streamlining:
The Time it Takes for Restoration: A Qualitative Analysis of Factors that Speed and Slow Mitigation Banking Approval Timelines (includes recommendations for streamlining the approval process, see p.22-29)
Top Ten Changes to the NEPA Debt Limit Deal
If You Can Track a Pizza, You Can Track a Permit (Case study about the Virginia Permitting Enhancement and Evaluation Portal and other efforts to track permit deadlines)
The Restoration Economy Center, housed in the national nonprofit Environmental Policy Innovation Center (EPIC), aims to increase the scale and speed of high-quality, equitable restoration outcomes through policy change. Email Becca Madsen if interested in learning more, sign up for our newsletter, or consider supporting us!
