Todd Parfitt, director of the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality, presented the agency’s priorities and detailed multiple exception requests to the Joint Appropriations Committee, stressing a mix of fee actions, staffing and compliance work.

Parfitt described a proposed administrative restructuring that would move accounting positions from operational divisions into an administration cost center managed by Administration & Information (ANI) and use indirect cost recovery to shift some general fund burden to federal and special revenue. He said the request is for $801,524 in general funds with an estimated federal offset of about $350,000, producing a net general fund need of roughly $450,000 initially; state budget staff called the approach a way to maximize allowable indirect cost recovery across federal grants.

On program work, Parfitt highlighted air‑quality priorities including the winter ozone season in the Upper Green River Basin and the need for prevention of significant deterioration (PSD) modeling tied to major permits. DEQ requested NSR modeling/permitting support funded via a new NSR fee authorization (roughly $500,000 in other funds) because the agency lacks in‑house modeling capacity for complex major source reviews.

Parfitt also outlined a $250,000 one‑time general fund request to evaluate and implement changes needed to comply with Americans with Disabilities Act web and mobile application rules (DEJ deadline cited as April 2026). Committee members and the budget office discussed whether those costs could be recovered through statewide cost allocation and arbitration; the budget department said the petition to make the cost allocable is in process.

In water quality, Parfitt detailed the agency’s Class 6 underground injection control (UIC) primacy for carbon sequestration and asked for one additional groundwater environmental geologist position to handle an expected increase from 17 to 35 applications in the biennium; he said fees for those applications average about $50,000 per construction/injection action and added a small per‑ton fee (7¢/ton) collected when permits transfer to the state for long‑term maintenance.

Parfitt warned the committee that large federal Earth MRI funding for geophysical surveys is set to expire and that some USGS programs will be reduced, creating a need to prioritize state and smaller federal survey efforts.

Why it matters: DEQ’s combination of fee, staffing and administrative requests seeks to maintain permitting timeliness and program integrity as federal programs change and as major industrial projects—data centers, carbon sequestration, and large mineral/energy projects—seek permits.

What's next: The committee questioned timeline and cost‑recovery mechanisms; budget staff and DEQ agreed to provide more analytic detail where splits and historical funding percentages need clarification.