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Several provisions tucked in a budget-related bill would set back environmental protection in Pennsylvania. One would cancel regulations related to natural gas drilling. Another would delay the commonwealth’s effort to address climate change, and a third would take money earmarked for energy conservation and direct it toward natural gas development.
The Fiscal Code is one of several bills necessary to effectuate the commonwealth budget. The bill’s contents should be limited to directing how budget money should be spent. Unfortunately, the Pennsylvania Senate has inserted three environmentally troublesome provisions in this year’s Fiscal Code (HB 1327).
The first would cancel regulations relating to conventional gas drilling (Chapter 78 surface regulations). These regulations would, among other things, provide stricter standards for spill reporting and cleanup and require pre-drilling investigations to ascertain the existence of active or abandoned wells. Drilling into existing wells can result in groundwater contamination and other environmental damage.
These drilling regulations have been three years in the making, subject to 24,000 public comments and 12 public hearings.
The second troublesome provision would delay the Pennsylvania implementation plan to reduce greenhouse emissions from coal- and gas-fired power plants. This state implementation plan is required by recent Environmental Protection Agency regulations designed to reduce carbon emissions from power plants by about 32 percent by 2030. Power plants are the largest single source of greenhouse gas pollution in Pennsylvania.
A third troublesome provision in the Fiscal Code would transfer $12 million from the Pennsylvania Alternative Energy Investment Fund, earmarked for high-efficiency buildings, to natural gas infrastructure development.
The recent Paris climate agreement underscores the urgency of moving away from fossil fuels toward renewable energy and conservation. These Fiscal Code provisions would do just the opposite.
Not only is this bill bad public policy, but also it is unconstitutional – as it violates the single-subject requirements of the Pennsylvania Constitution (Article III, Section 3).
HB 1327 already has been approved by the Senate and is poised to be considered by the Pennsylvania House. The House should reject this bill and Gov. Tom Wolf should veto it should it reach his desk.
State Rep. Greg Vitali
Democratic chairman
Pennsylvania House Environmental Resource and Energy Committee