Comment Today to Protect PA’s Clean Air Programs

From PennEnvironment (http://www.pennenvironment.org):

As we all know too well, Pennsylvania has a real air pollution problem — almost half of us live in areas that received a grade of an “F” from the American Lung Association for soot and smog pollution.¹ A recent PennEnvironment report showed that at least four different regions of Pennsylvania suffer from more than 100 days of degraded air quality each year.²

But if state officials don’t take action soon, Pennsylvania’s clean air programs that put environmental cops on the beat and tackle pollution will run out of money.

Sign a public comment today at https://pennenvironment.webaction.org/p/dia/action4/common/public/?action_KEY=32341 to save Pennsylvania’s clean air programs.

PA Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) officials have said that the state’s clean air programs are on track to run out of money by 2021.³

But, they’ve proposed a commonsense solution: making polluters pay. The plan would raise $12.7 million by increasing fees for the state’s largest air polluters. This will allow DEP to hire more scientists and engineers to run the air program, make it easier for the public to access data on air quality, and more closely monitor the polluters putting our health at risk.

Tell DEP that you support making polluters pay their fair share.

We all agree our environmental agencies need to be properly funded in order to protect our health and environment. Unfortunately, DEP has said that unless these fees are raised, it will have to shrink its statewide air quality program by 30% and cut back on pollution monitoring, which would “virtually eliminate air toxics monitoring across the state and leave large portions of rural areas with no air monitoring.”⁴

Let’s make sure the environmental cops who protect us from air pollution have the resources they need to do their job successfully. Sign the public comment in support of raising fees on major polluters.

Then, share this alert with your friends who care about air pollution or suffer from asthma.

1. “Report Card: Pennsylvania,” American Lung Association, 2019.
2. “Trouble in the Air,” PennEnvironment, July, 2018.
3. Laura Legere,”Pa. air pollution fee hike planned for thousands of facilities as DEP account runs dry,” Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Dec 21, 2018.
4. Laura Legere,”Pa. air pollution fee hike planned for thousands of facilities as DEP account runs dry,” Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Dec 21, 2018.