Recent Massachusetts Executive Orders

The LSPA just received the following email from Paul Locke, Assistant Commissioner, MassDEP.  

I hope you are all healthy, safe and looking forward to a relaxing long weekend.  Before you head out, though, I wanted to highlight two recent Executive Orders that affect our environmental work.
 
First, Executive Order COVID-19 #41  rescinds the March 18th Executive Order Extending the Registrations of Certain Licensed Professionals (which extended professional licenses set to expire during the state of emergency) as of July 10th.
This means that any licenses that expire on or after July 10th will not be extended automatically by Executive Order, so those licensees will need to make sure they either get their licenses renewed or extended by the time their current license expires. It orders licensing boards to extend all registrations that had been covered by the March 18th Executive Order to at least October 1, 2020. Note that this material is in the second section of the Order - the first section deals with unrelated Child Care issues.
A copy of that Order is available here.
 
Second, Executive Order COVID-19 #42 "Order Resuming State Permitting Deadlines and Continuing to Extend the Validity of Certain State Permits"
 
For appeals, the new Executive Order works like this:
  • if the deadline to file an appeal would have fallen, or will fall, between March 10th and July 1, 2020, the new deadline to file an appeal will be August 10th.
  • if the deadline to file an appeal falls after July 1, 2020, the deadline would be August 10th or the normal appeal deadline under MassDEP rules, whichever is later. 
For constructive approvals:
  • if the deadline for MassDEP to act on a constructive approval would have fallen between March 10 and July 1, MassDEP's new deadline to act would now be August 17th.  
  • if the deadline for MassDEP to act would fall after July 1, the deadline would be August 17th or the normal deadline for MassDEP to act under its rules, whichever is later.
For the other things affected by the COVID-19 Executive Order No. 17 (permit decision deadlines, hearing deadlines):
  • if the deadline for MassDEP to act on a permit application or hold a hearing would have fallen between March 10 and July 1, the new deadline to act would now be August 10th.  
  • if the deadline for MassDEP to act would fall after July 1, the deadline would be August 10th or the normal deadline for DEP to act under its rules, whichever is later. 
A copy of that order is not yet on the state website (as of this email), but it should be available there shortly. Go to Mass.Gov and use the Search function to find, "Order Resuming State Permitting"  or other parts of the document title.
 
BWSC will plan to discuss these new Executive Orders - and any other questions you may have - at next week's BWSC Office Hours.  They are every Thursday at 9:00 am (except today, to give you the chance for a longer weekend.)  Details here.  

Again, have a good long weekend and maybe we'll see you next Thursday.

----------------------------------------------------------
Paul W. Locke
Assistant Commissioner
MassDEP Bureau of Waste Site Cleanup
1 Winter Street, Boston, MA 02108
 
617-556-1160
[email protected]
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