Senate committee passes a bill that would could streamline environmental appeals

ATLANTA -- State judges hearing appeals of action by the Environmental Protection Division would have to defer to the agency's expertise on technical matters under legislation approved today by the Senate Natural Resources Committee.
Critics say the proposal, Senate Bill 486, would make it harder for people to get a fair break if they disagreed with the agency.
Similar bills recently introduced in the House languished and will probably die when the House Natural Resources Committee did not consider them today in its final meeting before an internal deadline for legislation to pass.
The Senate bill is sponsored by Sen. Russ Tolleson, R-Perry, the chairman of the Senate committee. He had to break a tie for the measure to pass, 5-4, and move it on to the full Senate for a vote.
"It's kind of like: You might have to have surgery, and you might have an orthopedic surgeon, but you need brain surgery," he said. "I don't think you want that orthopedic surgeon working on your brain. In a lot of ways, this is the same point."
Supporters of the bill testified before Tolleson's committee that it is similar to what some other states and the federal government uses. Since state law gives administrative-law judges in the Office of State Administrative Hearings just 90 days to decide appeals of EPD permits that the agency may have spent months or even a year reviewing, they argued that it makes sense to defer to the agency's in-house experts.
Opponents counter that the judges have the ability to learn about technical issues and should go into each case with an open mind.
"I'm not following how a person could ever win if the administrative-law judge has to give deference to the agency," said Sen. Bill Cowsert, R-Athens, an attorney and Gov. Sonny Perdue's floor leader.
Tolleson's bill would only impact appeals of action by the EPD. Judges hearing appeals from other state agencies would not be bound by it.
One reason some groups are interested in the bill is because of an appeal about a permit EPD issued for the construction of a coal-fired power plant in Early County. Environmentalists appealed, and the administrative-law judge wrote that her decision in favor of the plant was based on her deference to EPD's technical experts. The case wound up before the Georgia Court of Appeals, which ruled she should not give any preference to the agency's expertise.
Environmentalists argued today that Tolleson's bill could backfire on business interests.
"More often than not, it's business that's unhappy with a permitting," said Hutton Brown, a senior attorney with GreenLaw, the environmental law firm that took the Early County power plant to court.

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