Governor Youngkin issues executive order to make approval process more user friendly

This time next year, the race to be Virginia’s next governor will be well underway, and the person in the office only has a limited time left to leave a legacy. 

This morning, Governor Glenn Youngkin issued the latest executive order directing executive agencies to find ways to streamline the process for the issuance of over 600 types of approvals. 

“Time spent waiting for an approval is time that could otherwise be spent building houses, teaching students, or undertaking hundreds of other of other productive activities,” reads the introduction to Executive Order #39.

Soon after entering office in 2022, Youngkin created the Office of Regulatory Management and the Office of Transformation with the issuance of Executive Order 19 which directed agencies to eliminate a quarter of their regulatory requirements. 

As part of that initiative, Youngkin directed the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality in January 2022 to test a new permitting system which has since been expanded to other agencies. Any member of the public can track changes using the Virginia Regulatory Town Hall and Youngkin claims this has increased processing times. 

“Over the past two years, DEQ has managed to improve its permit processing time by 70 percent using the Permitting Enhancement and Evaluation Program,” EO39 continues. 

Another order made by Youngkin in early 2022 required the Secretary of Labor and the Department of Professional and Occupational Regulations to speed up processing times. 

Now Executive Order #39 now calls on agencies to eliminate any “osolete” regulations and to further reductions in approval processing. Improvement plans must be completed by December 13 and progress reports must be given quarterly. 

There’s also Executive Order 5 which established the position of Chief Transformation Officer and ordered a review of the Department of Motor Vehicles and the Virginia Employment Commission. 

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