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The House will vote Thursday, 2/28, on new dock and other related fees. Here are the pro and con committee reports. 10-9 look like a party line vote in committee, so the Democrat majority will probably pass it on the Floor of the House too.

HB 682-FN, establishing a water resources fund in the department of environmental services and charging
certain application and permit fees. MAJORITY: OUGHT TO PASS. MINORITY: INEXPEDIENT TO
LEGISLATE.
Rep. Judith Spang for the Majority of Resources, Recreation and Development. The fee increases in this bill
are critical to the ability of the Department of Environmental Services (DES) to perform the responsibilities
the legislature and the federal government have charged them with. State general funds provide less than 9
percent of DES’s operating budget. For development projects in-state, the agency relies solely on fees. By law,
the amount of fees, including those in HB 682, are capped relative to the actual cost to the agency of providing
the service. In 2018, legislation signed into law required DES to shorten the response time for applications for
wetlands, alteration of terrain, and dredge and fill permit requests by one-third to one-half. More staff had
to be hired. The legislature gave the agency no money to fulfill these shortened permitting times. This is on
top of 11 years with no fee increases, despite soaring costs of personnel and other expenses. Inadequate fees
means inadequate review of projects, delays or denial of permit applications, and possible loss of streamlining
of permits with federal agencies. The land development industry supported faster turnaround of their permit
requests and did not testify in committee opposing the fee increases in this bill. As for the rulemaking, the
fees must be set according to the actual costs of reviewing and acting on a wide variety of projects. Every
two years, the Commissioner of DES will review the fees to see if they have been adequate to cover program
expenses. If not, a detailed justification would be required through the RSA 541-A rulemaking process to get
approval for adjusting them. If there is an objection to the proposed fee increases or the rulemaking process,
the committee heard none from the affected industry. Vote 10-9.
Rep. Andrew Renzullo for the Minority of Resources, Recreation and Development. This bill has at least 20
new or increased fees. The Department of Environmental Services (DES) asserts that fees need to be adjusted
because they have not changed in over a decade. According to the fiscal note, the DES compared the revenue
from the existing fee structure ($1,865,677) to the revenue from the proposed structure in the bill ($4,852,256).
That is an increase of $2,986,679. So fees did not just double, they are close to triple what they are now. That
large a fee increase cannot be justified. Let us look at a few of these new fees or increased fees. Right now a
temporary seasonal dock is exempt from permitting requirements. It is a permit by notification. The fee is
$0. Under this bill the fee will be $300. The application fee for an excavating and dredging permit goes from
$200 to $400, plus an increase from $2 to $6 per square foot of permanent dock surface area, an increase
from $1 to $3 per square foot of seasonal dock surface, and an increase from $0.20 to $0.60 per square foot
for dredge and fill surface area. Also, the Department of Transportation calculated, based on the previous
three years, that the average increase in fees paid to DES by DOT would have been $148,512.73 (220.6%)
more each year for FY 2016 – FY 2018 had the proposed fees been in place. However, if these inordinately
large fee increases bother us, the DES has proposed a solution. The bill proposes that the Commissioner of
DES shall henceforth adjust the fees by rule. So we as legislators will never have to see them again. That is
a serious thing to contemplate and a betrayal of our duty to our constituents who expect us to monitor and
control the agencies of the government in their behalf. In closing, this bill is a very complicated, far reaching,
multi-faceted, and excessively expensive to New Hampshire citizens and businesses.