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CRinOUE OF THE CLINTON WETLANDS PLAN 



for the record by 

 CONGRESSMAN DON YOUNG 



Streamlining the Pennittin2 system. 



The average processing time for an individual permit in Alaska is about 180 days which 

 means that most Alaskans who only want to build a driveway, loose a full construction 

 season. In most cases it takes at least 18 months to two years from the tinje the permit 

 is applied for until construction can begin. This adds greatly to the cost and does nothing 

 for job creation or the environment. 



Nationally 53% of individual permits are effectively denied (the number denied plus the 

 number withdrawn since 1990.) And even of the permits that are technically granted, in 

 my home state of Alaska, around half are never built because the cost of the onerous 

 mitigation requirements. (According to NOAA in researching permits in the coastal zone 

 which make up most of the permits in Alaska except Fairbanks and surrounding areas.) 

 This means that the property owners are effectively only able to use the economic 

 potential of their own property about one time in three. 



What is wrong with the Clinton policy on streamlining the system? 



While the Administration's plan makes a great deal out of implementing regulations that 

 will lower permit processing times to 90 days in most cases, current regulations require 

 that permits be processed in 60 days. These regulations are routinely ignored now, it is 

 difficult to understand why anyone should believe that the new regulations will be of any 

 more significance? Without the hammer of automatic approval or some other 

 mechanism the 90 time line is meaningless. 



The second area where the Administration's streamlining plans are grossly deficient is the 

 area of how the agencies are permitted to start and stop the clock for processing time by 

 simply requesting additional information. It is not uncommon for a small landowner to 

 be held up for months with several separate requests for additional information. 

 Frequently these requests appear to have little or no bearing on the permit application. 

 While the agencies have the luxury of starting and stopping the clock in order to alter 

 their permit processing time statistics, landowners don't have the luxury to start and stop 

 mortgage payments the same way. 



Takings 



The current system totally ignores private property rights 



The courts have traditionally required that 95% of the value of the property be lost in 

 order to be a "taking." Even with this incredibly high burden of proof, the Federal 

 government lost over 1/2 of the takings cases it was involved in last several years. 



