Online Permitting Portal Bill Head to Governor Wolf’s Desk

From PA Chamber of Business & Industry

The Senate unanimously passed and sent to Gov. Tom Wolf legislation last week that would bring a welcomed and overdue reform to the permitting process in Pennsylvania.  House Bill 1284 – which the House had unanimously passed in June – would direct the state Department of Community and Economic Development to create a one-stop-shop online permitting portal for businesses, in order to help streamline and bring efficiency to existing permitting processes.

The PA Chamber has supported this measure as one bill within a broader legislative package of much-needed regulatory reforms, and has previously communicated to lawmakers that recent efforts to employ e-permitting have been met with success, including improved permit review times.  “We have been encouraged so far with the results achieved by the Department of Environmental Protection moving to e-permitting in a number of their programs,” the PA Chamber wrote in a memo issued last month.  “Additional deployment and use of this type of technology across all of DEP’s permit programs … will allow for better use of taxpayer resources and improve consistency and regulatory certainty for the business community.” 

The governor has until Oct. 28 to take action on the legislation.