Senate committee hears compromise fee plan for DOGAMI amid permit backlog and inspection shortfalls

SALEM, Ore. — The Senate Committee on Rules on May 19 heard testimony on Senate Bill 836, a fee bill that would change how the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries (DOGAMI) funds mineral land permitting, inspection and reclamation work.

DOGAMI Director Rory Day Stearrit told the committee the agency is a “wholly fee funded program” and that SB 836 (dash-2 amendment posted) would let the agency adjust maximum fees for onshore exploration, surface mining, mining operations, application and inspections, well drilling, and geothermal wells and require those adjustments to be “proportional to the percentage change in inflation over the 24 month period preceding the start of each biennium.”

The measure matters because it ties permit funding, staffing and inspection capacity to fee revenue. Moss Adams, the consulting firm that audited the permitting process at DOGAMI, told the committee the program has a backlog of about 100 pending permit applications and that the typical time from application to permit decision is about a year.

Audit findings and agency compromise

Tammy Lor Schwietzer of Moss Adams testified that the audit examined permit work from January 2019 through December 2024 and identified process bottlenecks: incomplete…