September 23, 2019
Subject: Citizen Opposition to House Bills 1106 and 1107
To the Honorable Thomas W. Wolf, Governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Honorable Members of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, and Honorable Members of the Pennsylvania Senate:
How much faster does the petro-chemical buildout in Pennsylvania need to be?
The General Assembly of Pennsylvania is poised to vote on a package of bills known as Energize PA. These bills are intended to pour fuel on the already growing wildfire of oil and gas expansion in the state. Two of these bills – HB 1106 and HB 1107, will be voted on this week. If passed, the General Assembly will be doing just what industry wants . . . turning the Commonwealth into a Welcome Wagon for all things oil and gas, at the reckless expense of public health, the environment, and quality of life.
Hidden in these sweeping proposals, under the guise of economic growth and expansion, are measures that will do more than just line the pockets of oil and gas executives. HB 1106 and HB 1107 also seek to gut the permitting authority of the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and transfer it to a newly created and politically appointed 5-person Permitting Commission whose sole task will be to rubber stamp all environmental permit applications. Strong and enforceable permits, with robust provisions for public participation, are what protect people against the health and environmental impacts of all kinds of industrial activities that threaten air and water quality, not just oil and gas. These bills take all of those protections away.
This cannot be allowed to proceed, but if it does, Pennsylvania will forfeit its authority to implement any federal environmental program until the state seeks approval from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of these substantial changes. These bills gut a significant portion of DEP’s authority and such a move would require EPA approval. This is because federal laws such as the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act are administered in states through a process where EPA approves (“authorizes”) a state to implement the federal program. If Pennsylvania does submit requests for revisions to its federal authorizations, this process provides for public comment and judicial review of EPA’s final decision-making. And until necessary revision requests are submitted and approved, a process that could prove lengthy, EPA will likely take over permitting, enforcement, and all other responsibilities in 2
Pennsylvania regarding the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, and more.
This is reckless lawmaking, but not surprising. Together, these bills represent the culmination of a long-game playbook written by the oil and gas industry that has now been plopped into the lap of malleable state legislators. And here’s how it goes.
Step 1: Starve DEP by slashing funding by 24 percent between fiscal year 2007 and fiscal year 2019 despite the exponential growth of shale gas production – from less than half a billion cubic feet per day in 2008 to more than 18.7 billion cubic feet per day as of June 2019.
Staffing levels have decreased 23 percent since 2006. The Oil and Gas Program suffered some of the deepest cuts. As of early 2018, this program ran a $600,000 a month deficit, and staff was reduced from 226 to 190 employees compared to 2006, with a 43 percent staff reduction in the Southwest District Office, and 15 percent in the Northwest District Office, both of which assume a sizable portion of the Department’s oil and gas permitting. In 2018, despite these paralyzing cutbacks, DEP managed to issue 2,149 oil and gas permits even though only 917 wells were drilled. So is a faster permit track really needed?
Step 2: After decimating the agency, complain about the permit “backlog” as the budget-starved DEP struggles to keep up with the avalanche of permit applications from companies who run over local communities in their rush to sink even more gas wells, install tank farms and compressors, build gas processors and petrochemical plants, and pummel the roads and highways with continuous, polluting truck traffic.
Step 3: Purport to solve the “problem” created by the budget and staff cuts by taking permitting authority away from DEP and give it to a new political commission charged with ensuring that all shale gas projects (and any other activity that requires an environmental permit) never again have to sit down with regulators and work through real environmental problems. Permits will be approved in 30 days or they will be deemed approved – no matter how complex, no matter how technologically complicated the pollution control equipment, no matter how much threat the activity poses to the health of nearby communities. This is all so the shale gas industry, an industry that’s expanded by a factor of 37 since 2008, can overrun the state (in the name of progress) even faster than it has in oil patch states like Texas and Louisiana.
Thanks to budget cuts, industry lobbyists, and their amen corner in the state legislature, the oil and gas industry in Pennsylvania is already driving a hundred miles an hour, exposing communities to more air and water pollution and increasing the risk of deadly accidents. Now the legislature wants to double a speed limit that is already too dangerous.
“Expediting” permitting in Pennsylvania is a solution in search of a problem in a state where gas production has increased by a factor of 37 since 2008, much faster than any other state. And the permit “backlog” is a “problem” the state legislature created by hacking away at the budget for environmental protection year after year. And again, because it does bear repeating, permits already are being approved by DEP permit staff at a rate more than three times faster than shale gas projects can be built.
DEP needs to be supported, not dismantled. In addition to the 2,149 oil and gas permits issued in 2018, DEP also discovered 4,060 oil and gas violations, and collected $4,140,382 in fines and penalties. The Department is not perfect, but there are good people within DEP trying to do the right thing with one hand tied behind their backs due to impediments created by the same legislature that is proposing these reckless bills.
These bills must be defeated and funding and appropriate staffing levels must be restored to DEP. If these bills are passed, Governor Wolf must veto them.
Respectfully submitted,
Lisa Hallowell, Senior Attorney
The Environmental Integrity Project
Philadelphia, PA 19106
202-294-3282
Lhallowell@environmentalintegrity.org
Lisa Graves Marcucci,
Coordinator Community Outreach
The Environmental Integrity Project
Pittsburgh, PA 15236
412-897-0569
lgmarcucci@environmentalintegrity.org
Additional signatories..
