A state report concluded Tuesday that Minnesota's environmental review process for major development projects is muddled with unnecessary delays.
State agencies often perform environmental reviews to analyze private projects with large potential impacts on the state's natural resources. A nine-month Legislative Auditor investigation found that those reviews "do not consistently reduce delay, uncertainty, and duplication in the process."
One possible reason? Agencies are doing a poor job tracking the timeliness of their reviews because they lack adequate data to do so, according to the report released Tuesday.
The report recommends that the state establish clearer standards for environmental reviews and keep better records to track them. It also said the state should experiment with exempting some "low-risk" projects from the process altogether.
The report comes one day after the Legislature sent Gov. Mark Dayton a bill to streamline permitting and alter some rules regarding environmental reviews. Dayton has three days to take action on the bill.
"The legislation we passed addresses some of the concerns raised in the [auditor's] report," House Speaker Kurt Zellers said. "But our reform work has just started."
Representatives of the Department of Natural Resources and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency largely agreed with the report's findings and recommendations.
"We are aware that lawmakers and the public are interested in a quicker process while ensuring we conduct thorough reviews," said DNR Commissioner Tom Landwehr. "I believe we are on the path to that goal."
