Growth and Agency Roles in the States

• Author: John Pendergrass
• Position: Director of ELI's Center for State, Local, and Regional Environmental Programs
• Pages: 10-10

Page 10 ❧ THE ENVIRONMENTAL FORUM Copyright © 2010, Environmental Law Institute®, Washington, D.C. www.eli.org.

Reprinted by permission from The Environmental Forum®, May/June 2010

By John Pendergrass

Growth and Agency

Roles in the States

New Jersey’s new commissioner of

environmental protection, Bob

Martin, is planning to appoint an as-

sistant commissioner for economic

development, which has stimulated

discussion in the state about whether

it is appropriate for DEP to have a

high of‌f‌icial focused on growth. Mar-

tin acknowledges that the “primary

role of DEP is to protect the envi-

ronment and natural resources in the

state; that’s our No. 1 role, and I see

economic development as a secondary

role. In the past, the DEP has hindered

economic growth in a lot of cases and

. . . everybody has a DEP story.” His

vision of the role of the department

in promoting economic development

is through green energy and issuing

DEP permits as quickly as possible.

Some have a dif‌ferent perspective.

e head of the environmental section

of the Of‌f‌ice of Legislative Services, an

arm of the New Jersey legislature that

drafts bills and whose staf‌f is nonpar-

tisan and prohibited from taking posi-

tions on matters before the legislature,

notes that the law authorizing the

department says nothing about pro-

moting the economy. e law directs

DEP to protect the environment, pre-

vent pollution, and conserve natural

resources. In fact, DEP was created

on Earth Day in 1970 when the De-

partment of Conservation and Eco-

nomic Development was split up and

the economic development functions

were given to other agencies. is can

be viewed as an indication that eco-

nomic development was intended to

be removed from DEP’s authority.

Martin’s vision of the department’s

role in economic development does

not appear to be inconsistent with its

history or authorizing language. He

explains the new assistant commis-

sioner’s role in terms of existing DEP

programs and responsibilities — green

energy, permitting, and policy.

One of his previously announced

initiatives is a one-stop of‌f‌ice to assist

permit applicants with the process,

a function that one DEP employee

said currently exists but is far down

in the bureaucracy. Nor is permit

reform necessarily a partisan issue;

the previous governor, a Democrat,

had established a task force to review

DEP’s permitting process and Gover-

nor Chris Christie, a Republican who

appointed Martin, is considering the

recommendations of the task force.

As further evidence that linking

permitting and economic develop-

ment is not a radical

concept, New Jersey

Future, a nonparti-

san organization ad-

vocating for smarter

growth, sponsored

a panel on how to

achieve meaningful

permit reform at its recent statewide

Redevelopment Forum.

Martin emphasizes linking the

environment and the economy. “I re-

ject the premise that we must choose

between a healthy environment and

a vibrant economy,” he says. Many

environmentalists agree with this sen-

timent, including Richard Webster,

legal director of the Eastern Environ-

mental Law Center, a nonprof‌it public

interest law f‌irm in Newark. “ere is

no dichotomy between a good envi-

ronment and a good economy,” he

says. “A good environment goes with

a good economy, and you can’t have

a good economy if you don’t have a

good quality environment and an ef-

fective DEP.”

A quick review of other states

failed to f‌ind any other environmental

agencies with a similarly high of‌f‌icial

whose duties are primarily devoted to

economic development. Nor did this

search reveal environmental agencies

that have economic development as a

primary program. An assistant com-

missioner of environmental protec-

tion for economic development will,

therefore, be something new.

It may not be all that dif‌ferent,

however, from what some other

state environmental agencies are

doing. Many agencies promote

smart growth and virtually all pro-

mote cleanup and redevelopment of

brownf‌ields. Neighboring Pennsylva-

nia, under Democratic Governor Ed

Rendell, has two deputy secretaries

with duties that include economic

development — one for commu-

nity revitalization and local govern-

ment support and one who heads

the Of‌f‌ice of Energy and Technology

Development. e former manages

large scale community revitalization

projects while the latter is responsible

for developing state

energy policies and

for supporting eco-

nomic development

initiatives related to

energy, among other

duties.

e title assistant

commissioner of environmental pro-

tection for economic development

may at f‌irst seem odd, but Commis-

sioner Martin makes a good case for

the value of such a post and how it

can f‌it within the statutory mandates

of DEP. His explanation of the assis-

tant commissioner’s duties suggests

that they will be within the broad am-

bit of existing department activities, if

elevating some of those to new promi-

nence. But that is certainly among the

prerogatives of an agency head. is

is another state experiment that keeps

environmental policy vital.

John Pendergras s is Dir ector of ELI’s

Center for State, Local, and Regional Envi-

ronmental Programs. He can be reached at

pendergr ass@eli.org.

A  S

A high level ocial for

economic developme nt

would be something

new in the states