Press Releases
03/04/2021
DEEP Announces Final 20BY20 Initiative Results
Regulatory Processes More Transparent, Efficient, and Predictable and Improve Constituent Service, Economic Development, and Environmental Protections
(Hartford, CT) – The Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) today shared the results of the department’s 20BY20 initiative, a process launched in June 2019 to improve the transparency, predictability and efficiency of our regulatory processes across 20 targeted areas by the end of 2020.
The agency completed nearly 80% of its goals, and is making strong progress in the remaining areas. These improvements make DEEP a more nimble, transparent, and responsive agency, improving customer service and streamlining processes, which support the state’s economic recovery while continuing to fulfill our mission of protecting the environment.
“When we launched this process in June 2019, we could not have predicted that a global pandemic would alter our work environment and priority assignments. Nor could we have anticipated how that and other significant events of 2020—namely the economic downturn and the renewed focus on racial justice—would add new urgency to many of the goals targeted through 20BY20,” said DEEP Commissioner Katie Dykes. “The importance of goals such as expanding digitization and online document access, and enacting broad reforms of Connecticut’s cleanup framework for contaminated sites were very much amplified in 2020.”
Despite the challenges presented in 2020, the department made great strides in many areas, including making permitting timeframes more transparent, launching a permit concierge service and strengthening permit assistance, reducing the number of legacy permit applications pending, finalizing important changes to Remediation Standards Regulations and Environmental Use Restrictions, accelerating integration of new information technology platforms, increasing transparency/availability of DEEP’s vast swaths of data, and much more.
"Eliminating unnecessary barriers, increasing transparency, and embracing the digital tools that help us better serve our residents are critical pieces of what we're trying to accomplish across State government,” Connecticut Chief Operating Officer Josh Geballe said. “I'm excited about the progress being made through the 20BY20 initiative at DEEP, and look forward to seeing continued results."
“The completion of this initiative demonstrates DEEP’s commitment to its mission, and to the public it serves,” stated Dykes. “Through this process, we took a hard look at ourselves and our processes, identifying several areas where we could improve. As the results show, we made significant improvements in each of those areas, and we’ll continue to build upon those going forward.”
“I’m so incredibly grateful to our dedicated staff who embraced this initiative and saw it through largely under challenging circumstances, and to the many stakeholders who engaged with us during this process. Your efforts have helped to make us a better agency,” continued Dykes.
DEEP remains committed to continuing this positive progress in transparency, predictability, and efficiency. In 2021, its focus will be on institutionalizing the best practices identified through our 20BY20 effort in order to make these improvements permanent, and to continue to identify new ways for the department to better fulfill its mission and serve the public.
Go here to view the 20BY20 Final Report. A copy of today’s presentation is also available here.
HIGHLIGHTED 20BY20 ACCOMPLISHMENTS
PREDICTABILITY:
- MAKE PERMITTING TIMEFRAMES MORE TRANSPARENT: This quarter, consistent with the previous quarters in 2020, DEEP processed an overall 80% of applications within the expected timeframes. During each of those quarters, DEEP received approximately 1,000 applications and processed over 90% of applications.
As a result of this 20BY20 initiative, the public could see the expected timeframes for every type of permit DEEP issues – which is more than 125 permit types.
- ENHANCE PRE-APPLICATION ASSISTANCE: Despite the public health emergency for most of 2020, DEEP maintained an active online remote pre-application assistance program for entities requiring environmental permits. Exceeding the statutory requirement, DEEP met requests for preapplication meetings 100% of the time in a timely manner. In 2020, DEEP held a total of 69 multi-media program pre-application meetings – an increase of 40% over 2019. All meetings in the last three quarters were held online. In 2019, 96% of applicants reported their experience as “good,” or “excellent.” In each quarter of 2020, 97% reported their experience as “good” or “excellent.”
- REDUCE NUMBER OF LEGACY PERMIT APPLICATIONS PENDING: In 2020, DEEP staff worked diligently across areas in need of attention with longstanding pending permit applications and successfully reduced the legacy permit applications pending by 45%. Out of an initial 331 applications pending with DEEP, 144 applications have been processed; 37 applications were processed during the fourth quarter of 2020.
- FINALIZE RSR AND EUR REGULATIONS: This year, DEEP successfully moved the Remediation Standards Regulations (RSRs) and the Environmental Use Restrictions (EURs) through a rigorous public comment process, made necessary revisions to the regulations and sent the regulation packages to the Legislative Regulations Review Committee, which approved the regulations at its January 2021 meeting. These regulations will ensure environmentally sound standards and greater efficiency of property transfer and redevelopment, a key part of supporting economic recovery while protecting the environment.
EFFICIENCY:
- ELIMINATE SOME PERMITS AND MOVE TO “PERMIT BY RULE”: This regulation converts the General Permit to Limit Potential Emissions (GPLPE), which covers 200 sources, into a regulation that achieves the same level of environmental protection and reduces costs to businesses by eliminating the need for a permit application.
- SIMPLIFY NATURAL DIVERSITY DATA BASE DETERMINATIONS: In the spring report of 20BY20, baseline data for the Natural Diversity Data Base (NDDB) was introduced. Within the past year, the NDDB program received more than 1,000 requests for environmental reviews with 82% being closed within a one-month timeframe. These are requests to determine the impact of proposed projects on both federal and state listed species and to help landowners conserve the state’s biodiversity. To help reduce the time it can take to complete the review process, DEEP has developed a self-serve user portal that provides instant responses for less complex projects.
TRANSPARENCY:
- ESTABLISH PERMITTING CONCIERGE FUNCTION: DEEP launched a new Permitting Concierge Service to provide enhanced support for businesses navigating through environmental approval processes and to contribute to the state’s efforts to promote economic recovery and growth. Assistance with the predictability and transparent sequencing of permits for facilities and sites provides for more effective delivery of timely, quality permits. The Concierge Team has also made 13 presentations to external and internal stakeholders, giving an overview of the Concierge Service and seeking feedback on its development.
- ACCELERATE E-GOVERNANCE INTEGRATION: DEEP continues to invest in Information Technology resources on high-impact e-governance initiatives that create more efficient, transparent regulatory processes and enable re-allocation of staff resources. In early 2021, DEEP anticipates the launch of several priority e-governance tools including a more user friendly, streamlined docket system for DEEP’s Environmental Adjudication unit, Bureau of Energy and Technology Policy, and the Public Utility Regulatory Authority (PURA); expansion of DEEP’s EZ-file system for permitting; and E-licensing of pesticide applicators and products. DEEP also initiated the development of an electronic Sites Cases Management System to track releases for protection of human health and the environment; develop cases; and make sure sites are cleaned up. This potentially addresses a universe of 6,000 dispatch/spill reports and 7,000 remediation sites and is an essential IT tool for DEEP’s new release-based approach to site clean-up.
- ENHANCE DATA TRANSPARENCY: Prioritizing digitization of files and making them freely accessible to the public on-line has paid dividends as this year DEEP staff and stakeholders adapted to remote work. For example, while DEEP’s records center at 79 Elm Street was closed to the public for much of the year, the digitization of Hazardous Waste Manifests ensured that members of the public would have uninterrupted access to the over 1 million in total documents through DEEP's Document Online Search Portal. DEEP also greatly expanded its presence on the CT Open Data Portal since the initial baseline of 20 Open Data datasets. DEEP launched the DEEP Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Open Data website which provides over 200 GIS datasets as well as easy access to a number of DEEP GIS web applications and public viewers. In 2021, DEEP’s efforts to digitize files will continue with an emphasis on the 130,000 historic spill reports and the 3.8 million records of remediation files that comprise many of the files in DEEP’s record center.
- INCREASE STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT IN PROCESS IMPROVEMENT EFFORTS: During the last two quarters of 2020, as part of the Connecticut Coalition for Sustainable Materials Management (CCSMM), DEEP embarked on a robust stakeholder engagement process - seventy-four municipalities joined DEEP in committing to explore ways to reduce the amount of waste that is generated in our state, improve reuse, recycling, organics collection, and other innovative solutions. Also In 2020, as part of the Governor’s Council on Climate Change (GC3), through the pandemic, seven work groups, made up of more than 230 volunteer-experts from universities, businesses, advocacy groups, and state and local government came together to develop over 1,000 pages of reports and recommendations for tackling the climate crisis, with equity and environmental justice at the center. In the beginning of January 2021, the GC3 delivered to Governor Lamont 61 recommendations for near-term actions to continue our progress in reducing emissions, and to make our state more resilient to climate change impacts, including natural and working lands.
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