The Nebraska Department of Environment and Energy (NDEE) continually works with new and existing businesses, industries, and municipalities across the state to protect, preserve, and enhance our air, land, water, and energy resources by issuing required permits, offering grants and loans, and assisting all entities to manage wastes and protect our shared environmental resources. 

Many new businesses are not sure which permits they are subject to, what tools are available, or what actions are allowed or required before starting. NDEE’s Small Business and Public Assistance Program is in place for Nebraska businesses that have questions about permitting and regulatory processes. It offers several services for new and existing businesses to have their questions answered.

Assistance services available to newly proposed or expanding businesses and industries include:

• Scoping Meetings: These meetings are for businesses and industries new to Nebraska or within Nebraska. They afford the businesses and industries an opportunity to meet pertinent NDEE staff and learn about the permitting process, including potential associated permitting fees and timeframes.
• One Stop Shop Permitting Meetings: These meetings are meant to spur discussion between the newly proposed or expanding business or industry and NDEE permitting staff among all media – air, land, and water. The goal of this meeting is to understand the potential permitting requirements based on the business’ or industry’s proposed project activities. 

  Assistance service for any business or industry is:

• Compliance Assistance Visits: These meetings are on-site services where NDEE’s compliance programming staff visit a facility to help the business identify potential environmental compliance gaps, to identify possible solutions, to provide training on general compliance requirements and the associated tools for meeting those requirements, and to understand the physical and process requirements a facility needs to meet its environmental compliance goals. 

  Although NDEE is focused on developing relationships with permitted facilities and achieving voluntary compliance, an assistance request and assistance     visits through this program are not shields for enforcement if violations present an immediate or substantial threat to human health or the environment.

Assistance services for regulated entities are:

• Individual Site Assistance/Training: These meetings are conducted after receiving a request during or after a routine compliance inspection. They occur on-site and include strengthening a regulated party’s staff ability in meeting compliance requirements and using tools needed to record and/or report data for regulatory purposes. These meetings may also include reviewing and providing training on specific compliance-related activities such as how to conduct sampling for an equipment of interest.
• Permit Assistance Visits: These visits are on-site services where permit programming staff answer permit-related questions on new, existing, or modified permits. 

NDEE’s goal is to guide facilities to compliance early on in order to avoid violations down the road. Services are made available by request. Reach out to the NDEE Environmental Assistance Coordinator at NDEE.Assistance@nebraska.gov for multi-media assistance. 

New businesses can also consult Permit Assistance Questions on NDEE’s web page which were created by permitting staff to help businesses determine whether a permit is applicable to their proposed project activities.