{"id":385875,"date":"2026-04-18T13:34:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T13:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/385875\/"},"modified":"2026-04-18T13:34:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T13:34:08","slug":"environmental-protection-authority-admits-cost-of-running-governments-fast-track-process-in-excess","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/385875\/","title":{"rendered":"Environmental Protection Authority admits cost of running government’s fast-track process in excess"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Scissors<\/p>\n

\nA Select Committee review of the EPA reveals that, between December 2024 and December 2025, 49 applications were lodged.
\nPhoto: RNZ\n<\/p>\n

The Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) has admitted that the costs of running the government’s fast-track process are ”well in excess” of what it expected.<\/p>\n

The agency was granted a $10 million Crown loan for the set-up costs<\/a> associated with running the process.<\/p>\n

The loan term was for five years and the EPA had said it would need 50 applications a year until 2029 for it to pay the loan back.<\/p>\n

A Select Committee review<\/a> of the EPA reveals that, between December 2024 and December 2025, 49 applications were lodged.<\/p>\n

The report said that ongoing operational costs were recovered by charging applicants a levy and application fee.<\/p>\n

”The intention is for the regime to be cost-neutral, so that operational costs are entirely recovered from applicants. Applicants cover actual and reasonable costs incurred by government agencies, local authorities, panel conveners, and expert panels.”<\/p>\n

The EPA told Select Committee members that that operational costs were “well in excess of what we first modelled”.<\/p>\n

“‘The EPA said that, initially, costs incurred by agencies, local authorities, and expert panels for each application were projected to be around $250,000, whereas now it estimates some applications to incur costs of more than $500,000.”<\/p>\n

Some Select Commitee members had heard that some councils felt unable to pass the application fee on to applicants.<\/p>\n

“Consequently, councils have absorbed some of the costs. The EPA commented that it has seen councils taking time to adapt to the fast-track regime, and that they are often still approaching applications as if they were under the Resource Management Act 1991,” the report said.<\/p>\n

“The EPA told us it has had “reasonably tense” conversations with some councils encouraging them to pass costs on.”<\/p>\n

The EPA was approached for comment.<\/p>\n

Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero<\/a>, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Select Committee review of the EPA reveals that, between December 2024 and December 2025, 49 applications were…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":385876,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[48,47,111,43,139,69,49,46,44,45],"class_list":{"0":"post-385875","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz","14":"tag-podcasts","15":"tag-public-radio","16":"tag-radio-new-zealand","17":"tag-rnz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385875\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/385876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}