Carter favors an inclusive process for updating the CZA
Stop the fast tracking of the ill-advised HB 190 that weakens Delaware’s Coastal Zone Act. The bill needs to be withdrawn. What is needed instead is an authentic public engagement process about the future of our Coastal Zone – a real dialogue about real issues, not the monologue that HB 190 represents.
There is no downside to taking a step back and beginning a real inclusive process that examines a shared vision for the future of Delaware’s Coastal Zone.
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The process is inclusive already. Carney has consulted lobbyists from many different kinds of businesses.
lol. true that
By the way, in terms of playing catch-up on this issue, I read Cassandra writing at BlueDelaware. ( https://bluedelaware.com/2017/06/05/hb-190-does-not-gut-the-coastal-zone-act/ ) She has contributed some interesting points such as:
Also – the comment thread is a good primer.
The director of DEDO, by law, sits on the coastal zone industrial control board. It’s in the regs.
Osienski keeps claiming he spoke with environmental groups, but this state is small and no one seems to know wtf he is talking about. When I met with him about the wharfage fee, he brought up the bill being drafted and said that it would make it easier to bring in manufacturing, which is already allowed with a permit, not heavy industry.
So what happens when DEDO goes the way of the Dodo?
I’m sure they’ll just change the name to whatever the new private pay-to-play DEDO becomes.
Anyone know where Stephanie Hansen is on this topic?
She campaigned on modifying the CZA.
Can we get the G-damn money out of politics in this state?
You nailed it. Stephanie Hansen is mute, while the partners at Young Conaway get their way with Coastal Zone revisions !!!
Ha! It’s Townsend’s bill and so we drag Hansen out for his whipping?
Stop LiberalGeek… I’ve already been warned about questioning Townsend on this blog. Don’t you start too.
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
Townsend definitely deserves kudos for a variety of progressive causes — most recently on his bill that passed the House tonight protecting a woman’s right to choose and control her own body. However, neither he nor Osienski has had one good goddamned quote in the newspaper explaining why their Coastal Zone legislation is actually a good thing and giving concrete examples of why it is needed. If they can’t explain the need for the bill — or their comms people can’t come up with a decent message for them — it seems to me that this CZA bill is a give away to polluting corporate interests. It certainly looks bad.
Stewball, this one’s for you. Love the monicker:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RivZTDLDYVs
Thanks El Som!
Thanks for your post. I think we need to press the Senate to see if anyone on that side cares about transparency and inclusion of the people they take an oath of office to serve.
No one should question the need to revisit the CZA after 47 years, but the backroom approach being taken has developed a bill rooted in misinformation and wrongful causal theory, that will not likely lead to the changes claimed. Also, by doing it in backrooms with selected special interest, it has created a deep bitterness that will continue through the regulatory process and implementation phase, creating an almost impossible position for DNREC to succeed.
Currently, DNREC has one staff person for the CZA regulation, Kevin Coyle. This is an enormous new regulatory development effort and implement process that will require about 3 full time equivalents (during a hiring and staffing freeze by Governor Carney), and a large increase in funds for monitoring and administration. This lack of funding & the staffing problem for this major new regulatory program is a sure recipe for failure. If interested, I still have all the documents and fiscal requests for the implementation of the CZA Regulations, including the memos to Nancy Cook & Joe DiPinto (February 24, 1999) when the legislature failed to fund the program, leading to the failures the Delaware General Assembly is whining about. I guess our legislative brain trust is now passing HB190 to cover up their own failures that caused the problems with the CZA. This legislative body seems to have no intellectual capacity to understand history and their own past failures, just a capacity to repeat the same stupid mistakes.
Stephanie Hansen ran on changing the CZA, but justified it by wrongfully claiming that sites were not being cleaned up. Hopefully, she will be enlightened by the truth now that the DNREC report has been publicly released completely refuting her wrongful claims.
DNREC has not flexibility to shift staff or funds to do this new regulatory program, despite the claims that Secretary Garvin will make keeping instep with his ill-advised marching orders from the visionless Governor John Carney. DNREC has been decimated by the lack of fee increases for permit programs, and are underfunded and understaffed in virtually every regulator program. The last fee increase was passed when Secretary Toby Clark was heading up that department (circa 1990). Programs like the Clean Water Act NPDES program are about 10 staff short of what is needed, leading to major failures in protecting clean water in Delaware. Others are just as bad. DNREC may be the next big crises, similar to what we are seeing in the Dept. of Corrections. Don’t buy the bullshit from John Carney, Shawn Garvin, or the Legislator that all is good in DNREC. The Department is barely keeping its chip above water, and the sea level is rising.