HB 1128 Environment – Water Quality Certifications – Requests (Water Quality Certification Improvement Act) has been withdrawn by the sponsor.

The bill would have required more individual water quality permits and would have led to both significant costs, and project delays for local governments. Current structure allows for certificate approval typically within three weeks, and a change in the permit structure was estimated to cause up to six month delays for some local projects. MACo opposed the bill as written due to concerns over project delay, the addition of new legal standing to challenge certificates, and a lack of alignment with federal standards.

Follow MACo’s advocacy efforts during the 2020 legislative session on MACo’s Legislative Tracking Database.