Lost last week amid the tumult over Gov. Paul LePage’s proposal to excise 65,000 Mainers from the MaineCare rolls was news that the administration intends to revamp the Department of Environmental Protection.

In explaining the proposed restructuring, DEP Commissioner Patty Aho promised more predictability and consistency.

“The new structure takes a practical approach that is both more efficient for the regulated community and for our own internal operations by having one full-service team to handle each function, whether it be permitting, inspections, enforcement, monitoring or billing,” she said in a release. “Now instead of three different departments, there will be one unified Maine DEP.”

Aho’s goals certainly sound laudable, but the scale of the suggested restructuring raises two critical questions.

First, why undertake such a massive repair project to fix something that, in general, functions well?

As Pete Didisheim of the Natural Resources Council of Maine pointed out in a statement issued in response to the restructuring plan, “Over the past eight years, the DEP has permitted more than $5 billion in capital investments in Maine. The department is processing more than 4,000 permits annually, even as its budget has declined by 12 percent since 2002 and staff has dropped nearly 20 percent since Fiscal Year 1995.”

One need only admire the bald eagles circling over the Kennebec, not far from the State House, or tiptoe into the no- longer rancid lower Androscoggin to observe clear evidence of the DEP’s valuable work.

As is the case with any 400-employee organization that must balance private, federal, state and municipal interests, some aspects of DEP’s service delivery require modernization and improvement. However, a major overhaul seems like clearcutting when rototilling would achieve desired efficiencies.

The second question that legislators must ask Aho to answer convincingly involves the timing of the proposed overhaul. As state and federal funding dwindles, does it make sense to redirect any of the DEP’s resources and energy toward reorganization? Shouldn’t the agency focus outward — devoting full attention to safeguarding Maine’s precious environment and serving constituents — rather than inward?

Likewise, Didisheim points out that DEP’s current configuration, with components devoted to air quality, water quality and hazardous waste, mirrors that of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. “With so much of Maine’s environmental protection money flowing down from the EPA, consistency makes sense,” Didisheim argues persuasively.

Aho and LePage merit praise for striving to make the best use of the DEP’s restricted resources. Modernization represents an admirable goal. Incremental changes at a time of uncertain funding seems perfectly warranted.

However, given that LePage assailed environmental regulation during his campaign, legislators should demand that his administration justify such sweeping changes as well-timed, practical steps toward greater efficiency, not tools to stripmine the agency of longtime environmental stewards who irked the governor’s political allies simply by doing their jobs.