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Arkansas energy and environment secretary outlines bills including plan to seek state authority over Clean Water Act §404 permits
Summary
Secretary Becky Keogh told the Senate Public Health, Welfare and Labor Committee the consolidated Department of Energy and Environment plans six bills to streamline permitting and agency alignment, including legislation to authorize the state to administer Section 404 of the Clean Water Act and shift federal wetland permitting to Arkansas.
Becky Keogh, cabinet secretary of the Arkansas Department of Energy and Environment, told the Senate Public Health, Welfare and Labor Committee that her consolidated department will seek a package of bills this session to align and streamline environmental and energy programs. Keogh said the lead proposal would provide legislative authority “to administer section 404 of the Clean Water Act,” a change she described as “a landmark piece of legislation” that would move permitting from multiple U.S. Army Corps/EPA district offices to a single state permitting authority.
Keogh said the department expects the federal agencies to be receptive to state delegation and that a state-run 404 program would create “efficiencies primarily to those that live in the state” and enable more consistent permitting across Arkansas. She framed the shift as restoring a historical preference for state administration of some federally authorized programs.
Department counsel Shane Corey said the administration anticipates five additional bills. Those include transferring the state mining program from the Division of Environmental Quality to the Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission, codifying an existing public-facility exemption in DEQ appropriation language, extending a 2019 statutory change from the term “regulation” to “rule” to bodies not subject to the Administrative Procedures Act, clarifying environmental officers’ authority to enter private property and the warrant process, and restructuring solid-waste licensing to a two-year operator registration with the same annual fee.
Keogh and Corey said the proposals are intended to reduce duplicative processes across entities that now sit inside the consolidated department, including the Division of Environmental Quality, the Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission, the Pollution Control and Ecology Commission, the Liquefied Petroleum Board and the Arkansas Geological Survey. Keogh asked the committee to consider the bills’ merits as they move through BLR (Bureau of Legislative Research) and toward sponsorship.
No formal motion or vote on these department bills occurred at the committee meeting; Keogh said some bills are still in drafting or are seeking sponsors and that staff contacts are available to answer committee members’ questions as the measures develop.
