ASSEMBLY, No. 1778

STATE OF NEW JERSEY

INTRODUCED MARCH 25, 1996

By Assemblyman KELLY

An Act requiring the Department of Environmental Protection to correspond in plain English, and supplementing Title 13 of the Revised Statutes.

    Be It Enacted by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey:

    1. All correspondence transmitted by the Department of Environmental Protection to a person who is not an attorney or expert on the subject matter of the correspondence, shall be written in plain English, such that a person possessing a high school degree, or its equivalent, without the assistance of an attorney or other expert on the subject matter of the correspondence, can understand any information, including any requirements of law, rule or regulation, provided in the correspondence.

    2. Upon the request of a person who has received correspondence pursuant to the requirements of section 1 of this act, the Department of Environmental Protection shall transmit to that person correspondence that would normally be transmitted to an expert on the subject matter of the correspondence.

    3. This act shall take effect immediately.

STATEMENT

    This bill would require the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to write all correspondence to a person who is not an attorney or expert on the subject matter of the correspondence, in plain English. Such correspondence would have to be written such that a person with a high school degree, or its equivalent, can understand any information, including any requirements of law, rule or regulation, provided in the correspondence. If a person requested more technical information, the DEP would be required to provide a more technical correspondence to that person.

    This bill would assist individuals who receive correspondence from the DEP, often in the form of technical instructions for remedying a violation of law, to understand better the information conveyed (e.g., the steps necessary to correct a given problem). The bill recognizes that the average person does not have the technical expertise necessary to understand much of the information conveyed in DEP correspondences, and that the DEP should be required to make such correspondences accessible and understandable to the average person.

Requires DEP to correspond in plain English.