The Department of Natural Resources is closing in on a major reorganization that could send duties to other agencies and streamline regulatory work, including an experimental plan to allow some businesses to draft their own environmental permits. That would include utilities such as We Energies, which operates coal-fired boilers at its Oak Creek power plant. Credit: Rick Wood

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The state Department of Natural Resources is closing in on a major reorganization that could send duties to other agencies and streamline regulatory work, including an experimental plan to allow some businesses to draft their own environmental permits.

Officials said the goal is to increase efficiency at an agency whose responsibilities range from management of hunting, fishing and state parks to regulating large-scale farms and keeping tabs on invasive species.

"We can't nibble around the edges," Deputy Secretary Kurt Thiede told employees last week. "We have to make strategic decisions about what we are going to continue to do, where we are going to focus and be brave enough to say we are going to give certain things up."

The changes will be closely watched by a GOP-led Legislature, which has been critical of an agency that it thinks has tilted too far toward protection and away from the rights of property owners. Lawmakers have cut the agency's funding and advanced a series of measures to limit DNR powers in recent years.

Environmentalists, meanwhile, have grown more dissatisfied, pointing to the drop in enforcement activity, reductions in scientific staff and concerns that the DNR isn't doing enough on matters like groundwater protection, water pollution and oversight of large farms.

Thiede emphasized that environmental protections won't be weakened and the DNR would still have to approve permits. "This isn't about changing the law, not following the law," he said.

Among the changes, the DNR would transfer management of some properties to other organizations and turn over work to others. One example would be to transfer genetics forest work to the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It might also merge some duties with the state Department of Transportation. DOT handles registration of trailers; DNR registers boats, snowmobiles and all-terrain vehicles.

The parks system is expected to undergo significant changes, in part, because the Legislature cut funding last year that will require it to rely on user fees for support.

The governor and the Legislature have directed the DNR to estimate how much revenue could be generated by letting motorists purchase park stickers when they register their car, with the presumption that more money could be raised with a checkoff. Michigan uses a checkoff system.

Other efforts are aimed at realigning personnel and operations across the department. The impetus: Find ways to eke out more efficiencies as responsibilities have grown while the number of employees has shrunk.

Secretary Cathy Stepp, who was appointed secretary in 2011 by Republican Gov. Scott Walker, spoke at a forum in Florida in January 2015 and expressed frustration in trying to spark a cultural shift with employees who hold strong environmental convictions, which she appreciated. "We needed to make the agency more approachable," she said. "We had to break down the gray bureaucratic walls."

Stepp, a former homebuilder, recalled at one agency listening session how an employee told her that the "deer and the butterflies and clean air and clean water, that those were our customers. And I said, 'Well, the last time I checked, they don't pay taxes and they don't sign our paychecks.'"

Employment at the DNR has fallen 15% since 1995 and now stands at 2,641, including vacancies, according to agency figures. There are 365 vacant positions. The DNR said it is in the process of filling 90 of those jobs.

The DNR studied efforts of 11 other states that are taking similar steps, including Minnesota, Iowa and Indiana. Thiede cautioned in an interview that no decisions have been finalized, but work will be completed by July 1 after input from business, environmental and wildlife groups — constituencies with often competing agendas.

"DNR should be commended for their efforts to streamline the permitting process to get permits issued more quickly without changing environmental standards in any way," Lucas Vebber, director of environmental and energy policy for Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, the state's largest business group, said in an email.

"Secretary Stepp and the leadership team at DNR deserve a lot of credit for taking on this reorganization effort that will allow them to continue to align DNR's resources to our state's needs."

But lobbyist Amber Meyer Smith of Clean Wisconsin is skeptical, especially about plans for revamping the permit process, and she said she wants to see assurances the agency won't be backpedaling.

"We are very interested that the DNR maintain its mission of natural resource protection and it does it with the highest level of accountability," she said.

Permits are used to regulate a range of projects, ranging from digging near waterways to factory air emissions.

A key change calls for using more general permits and fewer individual permits, which are tailored to specific cases and are more time-consuming to prepare. Officials said the shift was pushed by employees who believe standards in general permits can be rigorous, which would then give staff more time to work on complicated cases.

"We want to minimize the amount of time our staff spends on comparatively lower risk projects," said Mark Aquino, director of the Office of Business Support and External Services.

In some cases, the DNR is contemplating turning over the brunt of permit writing to businesses. Most notable: highly technical air pollution permits that regulate emissions at utilities, paper mills and chemical plants. The average approval time for such reviews now stands at 18 months, according to the DNR.

Officials say the true expertise resides with the engineers and technical staff of the companies, although DNR regulators will have the final say and would have more time to focus on compliance. The agency is borrowing the idea from Illinois regulators who have worked with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to turn over much of the air permit preparation responsibilities to a 3M Corp. manufacturing plant in the state.

"The devil is in the details," said former DNR Secretary Matthew J. Frank, who served from 2007 through 2010 under Gov. Jim Doyle, a Democrat. "The question is, how will this actually be implemented?

"You need a system where the DNR, as an independent agency, exercises its authority on whether a permit is granted. That has to be protected. That can't be handed over to business."

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Walker said he would consider an overhaul where clean air and water and economic growth are both priorities.

"I've said for years publicly, it's no secret. I've said to all the state agencies that I wanted to have this healthy balance...between having a strong, safe and healthy economy and a strong, safe and healthy environment, and I don't think the two are mutually exclusive," Walker said.

Environmentalists have been skeptical, noting that enforcement activity has fallen under Walker. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported in March 2015 that the DNR annually took up fewer cases, issued fewer violations and referred fewer cases for prosecution from 2011 to 2014 compared to the annual figures during Doyle's eight years in office.

The latest figures for 2015 show the number of cases, number of violations and referrals to the Department of Justice again fell, compared to the annual figures of 2010 through 2014. The agency said that the drop is occurring because the DNR is working upfront with parties to avoid problems.

Walker said he saw the decreasing number of DNR citations as a positive sign because he wants agencies to work early with parties and avoid problems.

"My goal is to have no citations, because when an agency issues a citation, that means something went wrong," Walker said.

Jason Stein of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.

What's next

Decisions will be made by July 1 after hearing from from business, environmental and wildlife groups — constituencies with often competing agendas.