by Greg Walcher, E&E Legal Senior Policy Fellow
The Daily Sentinel
People often ask me what “consultants” like me actually do. It’s a logical question because there is such a fine line between “self-employed” and “unemployed.” And there are as many different types of consulting as there are consultants. Sometimes I get paid to write newspaper columns, studies, grants, reports, op-eds, speeches and other materials. Sometimes people ask me to help solve problems with government agencies, and there will never be a shortage of people who have problems with government agencies.
That’s nobody’s fault, just the nature of government to oppose virtually everything everyone wants to do everywhere. The challenge for citizens and businesses is to find ways to get things done, generally in spite of the government, not with its help. Or at least not with its enthusiastic encouragement.
We have evolved into a society that requires government permits for a vast array of projects, from building a business to replacing windows in our homes. A large majority of permits are required by local and state governments, but at the federal level there is a dizzying range of laws that require permits from various agencies. Just to name a few: the Clean Air Act; Clean Water Act; Safe Drinking Water Act; National Environmental Policy Act; Endangered Species Act; National Historic Preservation Act; Resource Conservation and Recovery Act; Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act; Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act; Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act; Federal Power Act; Animal Health Protection Act; Fishery Conservation and Management Act; Agricultural Marketing Act; and even the Commercial Transportation of Equines to Slaughter Act.
There are more than 50 others, along with thousands of permit-requiring regulations created by executive branch agencies, not Congress. Permits are required for building roads, bridges, pipelines, transmission lines, powerplants, refineries, renewable energy facilities, dams, levees, canals, flood control systems, any project that touches wetlands or waterways and any project that disturbs more than one acre of land.
