Envionmental Protection and Reducing Regulatory Abuse

By Cheryl Ann Bly-Chester

As an environmental engineer, I have made a career out of my concern for the enviornment. In the course of representing clients who genuinely want to cleanup toxics in California, I have discovered that the State's regulatory agencies operate outside of the check and balance system that the constitution intended.

Working with the Office of Administrative Law, I would immediately remove these State regulatory impediments to addressing environmental concerns. The following is a list of initial steps I would take:

• As clearly stated in environmental law, independent, registered professional consultants will develop the scope of services and the schedule for all environmental remediation projects within the state of California. If State regulators challenge a professional's assessment, recommendations, or schedule, they must simultaneously submit a complaint to the State Board of Registration against the professional for incompetence, which will be ruled on by the State Licensing Board.

• For environmental cleanup cases where independent licensed professional evaluation concludes there is no imminent threat to human health or the environment, the least expensive feasible alternative will be favored.

• Any California State Regulator awarding contracts to entities that are not licensed in the state of California to perform professional services will be prosecuted for Waste, Fraud and Abuse.

EXAMPLES: The Uniform Building Code was recently amended without any Licensed Structural Engineer's stamp on the code changes. The California Regional Water Quality Control Board has contracted for several geologic/engineering studies providing professional recommendations with none of the signatories to the report being registered in California to perform the work.

• No California State Funds will be authorized to nonprofit organizations that are not incorporated in the State of California. All persons conducting services under a State of California contract will submit a tax return to the Franchise Tax Board for such income, whether they are residents of California or not.

EXAMPLE: The California Regional Water Quality Control Board has awarded hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Desert Research Institute of the University of Nevada when that money should have gone to the California university system.