Bill > A4234

Introduced Session

This bill, to be known as the "Expediency and Accessibility in State Environmental Permitting Act," would require the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to develop an accessible online permit transparency portal, which would be known as the Expediency and Accessibility in State Environmental Permitting Portal or EASE Permitting Portal. The portal would enable permit applicants and the general public to remotely monitor the submission, progress, and disposition of permit applications, in particular for those permits enumerated in the bill's definition of "permit." The bill would establish certain minimum requirements for the portal, for example that it allows an applicant to view the completeness of a permit application, including its administrative and technical completeness, any applicant or agent deficiencies in attaining application completeness, and the applicant or agent responsible for curing these application deficiencies. The bill would also direct the DEP to develop a needs assessment, workplan, and order of magnitude cost estimate for implementing a transition in its permitting processes over a 36-month period. The transition would be to a permitting workflow management system that features a permit applicant interface for application submission, tracking, management, and bidirectional communication between applicants and the department, such that all permitting activities and communications occur within a single unified database and user interface. The bill would authorize the DEP to assess a three percent technology surcharge on permit fees, for those permits covered under the bill. The proceeds of the surcharge would be used to support the technology improvements described by the bill. The bill would also appropriate $3,750,000 from the General Fund to the DEP. $3 million would be used to establish the EASE Permitting Portal and $750,000 would be used to develop the permitting process upgrade needs assessment.

AI Summary

Committee Categories

Dan Hutchison (D)*,  Cody Miller (D)*, 

Introduced, Referred to Assembly Commerce and Economic Development Committee (on 02/19/2026)

Official Document