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A Review of Regulatory Issues at the Department of Natural Resources
July 2004

FOLLOW-UP (PDF)     REPORT (PDF)     SUMMARY (PDF)

Members of the General Assembly requested that the Legislative Audit Council conduct an audit of the Department of Natural Resources (DNR). Our review focused on whether DNR was promulgating regulations in compliance with the Administrative Procedures Act (APA). In addition, we examined how DNR enforces state laws and regulations and how effectively it communicates changes in the laws to its officers and the public. Our findings are summarized below.

  • DNR has generally complied with the Administrative Procedures Act when promulgating regulations. However, DNR has in some cases misstated its statutory authority or did not have authority to include some provisions.
  • From 1998 to 2002, DNR issued more emergency regulations than any other state agency with over half of its regulations being emergency regulations. The use of emergency regulations can limit legislative and public oversight.
  • DNR administratively establishes no wake zones when it would be more appropriate to establish this process through regulation.
  • In 30% (24 of 81) of the tickets that were sampled, DNR fined individuals when it did not have the authority or when the regulations were not in effect. Seven individuals lost their wildlife management area privileges for a year as a result of these tickets.
  • DNR has written tickets citing statutes that have been repealed or redesignated. We found 186 tickets that cited incorrect statutes.
  • DNR has issued tickets for violations of the state-managed lakes program at a lake which was not a part of the program. In addition, citations were issued for violations at state-managed lakes after officers had been instructed to stop issuing tickets.
  • DNR has not always effectively communicated changes in statutes and regulations to the public and to its law enforcement officers.
  • We conducted a survey of DNR law enforcement officers and found several areas where officers expressed concerns including the enforcement of regulations and communication.