Why I think permits are important to citizens

[Glenn Landers <glenn.landers@sierraclub.org>]

My name is Glenn Landers and I'm a Sierra Club employee based in Cleveland, Ohio. I'll be one of the panelists for today's discussion on permits and rules, a topic of great interest to me as I have extensive experience commenting on state and federal air pollution permits and rules.

I think I might begin by talking a little about why permits interest me and why I think citizens should be involved in permit decision making. 

As an environmentalist, I've always been concerned that pollution problems in any given area may have two different components. The first is a general weakness of rules and regulations and, perhaps, the underlyng laws on which they are based. The second is an enforcement and permitting problem.  To solve a area's environmental quality problem, then, you have to judge to what degree the problem results from weak laws and rules and to what degree it results from lack of enforcement and bad permits. Voluntary programs, in my mind, are going to be pretty useless in areas where permits are weak or terms are ignored. On the other hand, in an area where permits are as rigorous as they should be and are enforced,  voluntary programs and working to strengthen rules perhaps should be a primary focus. 

If I think that permits and enforcement are a major part of the problem, then the advantage to working permits is that, though the rules are complex, there are some simple methods of review that help gradually introduce citizens to the process and eventually larger issues.

I usually tell citizens that my ideal permit contains all of the applicable rules, stated clearly in an enforceable manner, with adequate testing, recordkeeping, and reporting requirements to allow a reasonable assurance that deviations from permit terms will be caught. Surprisingly, simple proof reading with these goals in mind can often turn up defects in permits that need to be corrected. More indepth study is needed to fight on complex issues, but my point here is that some rather simple methods of review may turn up errors that are worth correcting. An example of this might be when a draft permit contains two contradictory statements about what constitutes compliance.

My experience is that citizens, once they understand the process and issues involved in reviewing permits, will soon graduate to more substantive issues, especially in an area where air quality is bad.  

Finally, permits are of interest to me because they are everywhere. It's hard to find a place where there is not a permitted facility nearby, usually at least one causing the neighbors concern. Permits for these facilities, as they come up, act as a natural organizing tool that can be used to begin a larger discussion of all environmental problems in the community. In this respect, public involvement in permits can be used well for capacity building, going well betond the simple review of a specific document that deals with only one facility.