Fair, predictable, timely and transparent regulatory and permitting processes are needed to provide businesses and investors with the certainty they need to make decisions about where to invest and grow in a fiercely competitive marketplace.  As budgets get tight and government bodies raise taxes or consider the reduction or elimination of financial incentives and tax credits, the efficiency of the permitting process becomes an even more important factor in decisions to start, expand or relocate a business.

That's because when business owners speak of how "business friendly" a community is, often times they are referring to how easy or difficult it is to start up or expand a business.   The biggest factors are how long it takes and how much it costs.  In some cases, businesses are willing to pay higher fees for a faster permitting process, but not all businesses are able to do this, expecially new and small businesses.  It should be the goal of every government body and agency in Oregon to have the most fair and efficient permitting process possible with the resources that are available.  
 

Oregon Business Plan Vision
 

Oregon will create and maintain an efficient, simple, and streamlined permitting system that makes it easy to start and expand businesses while still protecting public regulatory goals. State and local governments will update or eliminate conflicting, cumbersome, and redundant permit processes.
 

Where We Stand Today

The need to simplify and streamline regulation and permitting processes emerged as a top priority in the 2010 round of Oregon Business Plan regional meetings.  It was also identified as a stop priority in a survey of business leaders statewide conducted by Oregon Business Magazine.  This issue is connected to the industrial lands initiative.  When the Oregon Business Plan launched in 2002, it included an initiative to streamline permitting.  Governor Kulongoski opened the Office of Regulatory Streamlining.  It appears that whlie improvements have been made, much work remains.  We anticipate working with partners around the state, and with the current Governor and incoming Governor to identify opportunities to further streamline Oregon's permitting process.  Please offer your ideas below, and take a look at some of our previous materials on this topic.

Strategy and Priority Actions

1. The Governor, legislature, city and county executives and agency heads should all make improving the efficiency of  regulatory and permitting processes a top priority.  Attitude at the top is a key factor in influencing the behavior of individuals within agencies and collaboration between agencies.
2. Implement the accelerated permitting recommendations contained in the Oregon Business Plan Industrial Lands Initiative. 
3. Electric and natural gas transmission upgrades are crucial for enhancing reliability and for meeting goals for carbon reduction. State leadership is needed in crucial areas such as identifying key transmission corridors and expediting land use approvals for multi-jurisdiction approval processes. The December 2010 Oregon Energy Planning Report contains six recommendations developed by the Transmission Siting Review Workgroup that should move forward immediately. In addition, linear projects that don’t come under the Energy Facility Citing Council jurisdiction and projects applying for Certificates of Public Convenience and Necessity need similar streamlining of the approval process.
4. Adopt changes to the Remove-Fill permitting process proposed in 2010’s SB 1020 to facilitate linear projects and other necessary infrastructure improvements in the transportation, water, energy and other sectors.
5.  Review Governor Kulongoski’s regulatory streamlining initiative, identify where it has worked well, what issues it has failed to address and why.  A good place to start is the January 2011 report from the Economic Revitalization Team to the legislature. 
6. When considering new regulations and permitting processes, include an assessment of job creation impacts.  
7. Reform the regulatory appeals processes to prevent endless or frivolous appeals.
8. Separate permits from policy functions in regulatory agencies and move toward a one-stop, efficient natural resource permit process.
9. Require agency rules to meet strict needs standards and robust cost-of-compliance evaluation.
10. Work with agencies to act within specific time requirements on permits, pending enforcement actions and development of new regulations.  This is a process and should be done collaboratively with agencies and their customers, in light of available resources (see below).     
11. While budgets are tight, the legislature should consider these regulatory streamlining goals and objectives when setting agency budgets.  Meeting these objectives requires resources.  One way to free up resources to improve permitting processes during the current budget crisis is for the legislature to take away other requirements on agencies that are currently taking up resources but not contributing greatly to Oregon's economic and environmental health.  Tight budgets require re-evalutaiton and reprioritization.   
12. City and Couny leaders should establish regulatory streamlining initiatives at the local level.
13. Expand the use of e-permitting and plan review technologies.  The City of Bend's E-Plan Review technology provides a good example.   

Latest News

Dayton signs executive order expediting permitting process.  01.24.11.  The Minnesota Independent
Gov. Mark Dayton signed an executive order on Monday that would speed up the environmental permitting process of the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA).   Read more.  PDF of article.  Executive order.     

Background Documents and Materials 

	Oregon Business Plan Permit Streamlining Initiatives   2002-2009		Governor's Amended Executive Order on Streamlining   2009

Key Links
Governor's Office of Regulatory Streamlining