Summary


Pursuant to Rule 62-113, F.A.C. the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) delegated its authority to the water management districts to adjust all of the permit application processing fees to reflect at a minimum, any upward adjustment in the Consumer Price Index by the United States Department of Labor since the original fee was established or most recently revised and to identify the inflation index used for making the fee adjustments. The proposed actual upward adjustments appear on Tables 40E-1.607(3)(a), (3)(b), and (5), F.A.C. The inflation index used for making all fee adjustments is the price paid by all urban consumers for a market basket of consumer goods and services; specifically, the CPI figures for the “CPI-U, U.S. City Average, All Items” established for the previous five years by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) (www.bls.gov/cpi/), computed as provided in the BLS publication “Handbook of Methods”, Chapter 17 (www.bls.gov/opub/hom/pdf/homch17.pdf). Pursuant to Section 373.109, Fla. Stat., and the delegation in FDEP Rule 62-113, F.A.C., the District is also required to charge new fees under the Environmental Resource Permit program of Part IV, Chapter 373, F.S., as follows: (a) a new minimum fee of $250 for environmental resource permit (ERP) noticed general permits and individual permits; (b) a new minimum fee of $100 to verify qualification for an exemption from regulation under Part IV, Chapter 373, Fla. Stat.; and (c) a new minimum fee of $500 fee to conduct an informal wetland boundary determination. In order to recover a larger portion of the cost to the District to process, monitor and inspect for compliance, the District is also proposing additional adjustments to fees for new individual permits for agricultural and non-agricultural projects (including mitigation banks), individual permit modifications for agricultural and non-agricultural projects (including mitigation banks), standard general permits and general permits for agricultural and non-agricultural projects both new and modified, early work, permit transfers, variances associated with environmental resource permit applications, new individual operation permits, environmental resource and surface water management letter modifications, new or modified individual or standard general permits solely for environmental restoration or enhancement activities provided such activities are not associated with a mitigation bank and are not being implemented as mitigation for other activities that require a permit under Part IV of Chapter 373, F.S., dredge and fill Permits both short form and standard, variances associated with a wetland resource permit application, dredge and fill general permits and modifications, dredge and fill transfer of permits or time extensions, formal wetland determinations with modified categories. The District is also proposing a new $100 fee to process no notice general permits pursuant to Rules 40E-400.315 and 40E-400.316, F.A.C., and a new $500 fee to process permit extensions.