Section 22. (a) Within sixty days of a vote, pursuant to section seventeen, to initiate site selection, and after consultation with the commissioner of capital asset management and maintenance the board shall issue a request for proposals for the development, operation, closure and post-closure observation and maintenance of a facility. The request for proposals shall conform to the regulations adopted under section fifteen, and shall include the most recent management plan adopted by the board under section twelve and a statement of procedures to be followed in responding to the request for proposals. The request for proposals shall require responses to be submitted by applicants within one hundred twenty days after its issuance. Each applicant shall be required to specify the terms under which it will participate in an advisory board that will assist in the planning and implementation of detailed site characterization pursuant to section twenty-four, and pay the board a fee of not less than ten thousand dollars at the time it submits its response to the request for proposals. Such fee shall be refunded only if the board fails to select a superior site, pursuant to section twenty-three, from among the candidate sites identified pursuant to section twenty.

(b) Within sixty days of the final date for submission of responses to the request for proposals, the attorney general shall prepare an investigative report to the board and the community supervisory committees, on each applicant and its officers, directors, partners, principal owners, key personnel and proposed subcontractors, describing their record of compliance with environmental and related laws, regulations, permits and licenses. Each applicant shall annually by March first, submit to the state ethics commission and the inspector general, a report listing each expenditure made during the previous calendar year by an official, employee or representative of the firm, including consultants or subcontractors, to or for the benefit of an official, employee, or representative, including consultants, of the board, the department of public health, the department of environmental protection, the division of capital asset management and maintenance or any community supervisory committee. An officer of the firm shall certify the report as complete and accurate under pains and penalties of perjury. The state ethics commission, upon finding that there has been a violation of the reporting requirement set forth in this section, may issue an order requiring the violator to pay a civil penalty of not more than one thousand dollars for each day of violation and may file a civil action in superior court to enforce such order.

(c) Upon the issuance of the draft candidate site identification report pursuant to section twenty, and after consultation with the commissioner of the division of capital asset management and maintenance, the board shall certify those applicants who satisfy the financial, technical and management criteria adopted under section fifteen. Such certification shall be accompanied by a report including a justification for the certifications made. Such report shall be distributed to each community supervisory committee, the applicants and all others making a timely request. No applicant who fails to be certified pursuant to this section shall be required to submit a report to the state ethics commission and the inspector general, in accordance with this section, for any year after the year during which the certification of applicants is made.

(d) Within ninety days of the issuance of the draft candidate site identification report pursuant to section twenty, the board shall execute a contract with each certified applicant under which the applicant shall participate in an advisory board that will assist in the planning and implementation of detailed site characterization of the candidate sites identified pursuant to said section twenty.