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Governor signs SB 371, also requires regulations
Kristen Nelson PNA Editor-in-Chief
Gov. Tony Knowles signed Senate Bill 371 June 7, allowing exclusion of general and nationwide permitted activities from project consistency reviews.
The exclusion is a response to the recent Alaska Supreme Court decision in Cook Inlet Keeper v. State of Alaska, a dispute over disposal of mud and cuttings from exploration activities at the Osprey platform.
SB 371 clarifies, the governor said in his transmittal letter, that under the Alaska Coastal Management Program the coordinating agency has the discretion to exclude from project review activities permitted under general and nationwide permits. Knowles says clarification needed The governor said the clarification was necessary “because the implications of the court decision on the state’s permitting system go far beyond the subject matter of this particular case. It could jeopardize oil and gas permits as well as other resource development activities.”
But the governor also said he believes the court “raised a good point regarding the need in certain circumstances to review generally permitted activities in the context of a particular project. Such a review is not necessary in all instances,” he said, “but is appropriate where there is a significant project involving multiple state or federal permits.” Discretion required The governor said that in conjunction with signing SB 371, he is requesting the Coastal Policy Council to require the Division of Governmental Coordination “to include activities covered by a general or nationwide permit within the scope of review for projects that require a DGC coordinated review.”
Generally permitted activities will be considered for “significant projects requiring multiple state or federal permits,” Knowles said, but “other projects requiring permits from just a single state agency do not have to undergo this additional consideration.”
Pat Galvin, director of the Division of Governmental Coordination, told PNA June 11 that SB 371 “gives the coordinating agency discretion in whether to exclude activities covered by nationwide and general permits from a project review.”
The governor asked the Coastal Policy Council “to require DGC to exercise that discretion by including the activities within the scope of reviews done by DGC,” Galvin said. “DGC is more than capable of doing this without affecting our ability to complete consistency reviews on time,” he said.
Joe Balash of Sen. Gene Therriault’s staff told PNA Galvin had indicated while SB 371 was in the Legislature that the language allowed DGC to require site-specific reviews on general permits and that the circumstances for project-specific reviews of general permits would be specified in regulations.
Balash also noted that Therriault is working on a larger review of the state’s permitting system and “hopes to pull together a working group made up of the regulators, the regulated and the conservation community to look at how we can streamline the process without compromising environmental protections.”
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