I have found myself agreeing with your skeptical outlook of the permitting process plenty of times -- you steep yourself in the details of a permit application, confer with knowledgeable technical folks, labor over written comments and walk away from the process without changing the permit one iota. Disheartening without a doubt.
But I still don't think Glenn's example is totally isolated.
My experience sitting on a regulatory board in Virginia gave me a great deal of hope in that regard. I was one of seven votes -- and clearly the one person with the strongest environmental leanings. But my fellow board members, for the most part, listened respectfully to the public and clearly changed their stance in response to public input. While numbers could sway, I saw numerous instances in which a single individual or a handful of people with good information did make a difference -- in permits issued, enforcement action taken, regulations adopted.
Does that mean everything is now rosy there? Of course, not. Protecting the environment is a pretty protracted battle. Still I think it is worthwhile for regular folks to try and weigh in, and there are reasonable things that can be done to make that easier.
I'm hoping the EPA and librarian folks in this discussion will take a close look at some of the suggestions Paul Orum has made, for example, about how to organize information. Making sure that some info is available through web pages that are organized in the ways people ask questions rather than the ways the Agency is segmented makes a lot of sense.
In addition, I would commend the few states that have starting doing internet postings of permits received. I would encourage EPA to press -- through partnership agreements or other mechanisms -- all the states to take action to post notices of permit applications received, to include info on the status of the permit and the permit files and to assure that copies of all relevant materials are made available through local libraries. In those cases where EPA runs a permit program, the Agency should make such an attempt and maybe develop a good model for providing this sort of info.
I would also love to see information on facility permits and operations organized by sector. For example, it would be great if a citizen who was reviewing a draft permit for a metal finishing shop could look not only at what was being proposed for that facility, but also find, through the internet, information on permit terms and performance of other metal finishing facilities elsewhere. If information was available re: those who submitted comments on a given facility, an interested citizen might also be able to track down some help or advice from a person in a situation similar to their own.
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