From Pennsylvania Interfaith Power and Light (http://www.paipl.org):
Federal action opportunities:
Ask Senator Toomey and Senator Casey to read EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s email communications with polluting and fossil fuel interests, released after his confirmation hearing. Given his previous collusion and dishonesty, ask them to get Mr. Pruitt to publicly commit to recuse himself from decisions related to oil, gas, and coal, and also to ensure that the EPA maintains enough inspectors to uphold the law (and health-and-safety pollution standards required by law) as written, and keep honest companies honest. Be sure to include your zip code in all communications with your Senators. Health impact map of oil and gas operations in Pennsylvania.
Reach out to discuss HR 637, the EPA Overreach Bill (with 6 PA cosponsors) with your Congressman. Despite the premise of the bill, the Supreme Court ruled in 2007 and again in 2014 (with Justices Roberts and Scalia both on the majority opinion) that the EPA must limit greenhouse gas pollutants under the Clean Air Act, which Congress wrote and approved with enormous bipartisan support. Map of the health impacts of climate change, particularly in PA. Be sure to include your zip code in all communications with your Representative.
State action opportunities:
*Write official comments to the Pennsylvania DEP about changes to oil and gas operation regulations currently up for review. The new standards will better limit some kinds of emissions, but only from new natural gas facilities, not from the facilities that are already active and releasing air pollution and greenhouse gas pollution. The basic messages —which you can customize and root in the moral and ethical teachings of your faith tradition— are: we should not permit *new* fossil fuel infrastructure when health, safety, and justice all point clearly to the need to move farther and faster toward a clean energy economy; we need the General Permits to be as strong as possible and we need the DEP to work quickly to develop draft standards for existing natural gas facilities: drilling rigs, compressor stations, and pipelines by this summer. If you need inspiration, you can check out a broad range of testimony from PA IPL members (to the DEP and to the EPA from past comment periods) on our blog.
Send copies of your comments to your elected officials and to PA IPL. You do not have to be a technical expert to make a comment—public comment periods are all about giving citizens the chance to have input!
Email your comments.
Use a comment form to submit your comments (may attach PDF files).
Comments due no later than midnight on March 22, 2017.
*Contact your state Senator regarding state methane limits. SB175 seeks to limit state control over methane-related pollution, making federal limits the maximum limits. Make sure your Senator knows the health impacts of oil and gas operations, and how many schools are within the threat radius (1/2 mile) of wells and compressor stations. Drop this report by their nearest office.
*The Solar Jobs Bill that would increase solar installations in PA by “closing the borders” (counting only solar electricity generated in PA toward PA’s solar goals) now has a number: SB 404. We produced a general postcard encouraging Pennsylvania to “grow our own” solar electricity in time for Tu b’Shevat (the “Jewish Arbor Day” or “New Year of the Trees”). The scripture is Jewish, but anyone is welcome to use the postcard with their congregations and communities — or as inspiration for a letter to the editor. Find your state Senator’s address.
FEDERAL UPDATE SUMMARY
Cabinet Appointments: Scott Pruitt, the new Administrator of the EPA, has spent a great deal of time and energy in his previous positions trying to block the EPA from doing its work. (See above.) From the New York Times “Already, Mr. Pruitt has begun work to reshape the environmental agency. Among the candidates he has interviewed for top positions are several former senior staff members in the office of his fellow Oklahoma Republican, Senator James M. Inhofe, who has become known as Congress’s most prominent denier of the science of global warming.” During Mr Pruitt’s confirmation hearings, Mr. Pruitt appropriately expressed support for policies that protect the environment and public health. He must now put those words into action, including on climate change, which the Roberts Supreme Court has already confirmed is a threat to the health and welfare of Americans. We know that Mr. Pruitt will consider the costs of action is important that he also consider (and compare) the costs of inaction.
The Congressional Review Act can be used to repeal anything since mid-June 2016, due to the relatively few legislative days during the election season. When the CRA is used to repeal administrative executive regulations, it also prevents the executive branch from imposing “substantially similar” regulations in the future. The President has been supporting repeal of climate-related regulations through the use of Executive Orders as well. House Joint Resolution 38 repealed the Stream Protection Act, an update of mining waste standards as they relate to streams. This is a water issue directly, a climate issue indirectly, and a justice issue both ways. It passed the House by 228-194, and the Senate 54-45. There were 8 PA cosponsors in the House.
The rule most impacts the least labor intensive, most mechanized forms of mining: Mountaintop Removal and strop mining, especially in Appalachia. Job analyses suggest that the jobs lost with the rule pales in comparison to jobs lost in coal generally. Some suggest jobs would actually have been created by the rule in some places.
STATE UPDATE SUMMARY
Check out Pennsylvania’s role in NOVA’s new clean-energy episode, The Search For the Superbattery, currently streaming on PBS.org. Aquion produces a non-toxic, non-flammable “saltwater battery” developed and Carnegie Mellon and now being manufactured outside of Pittsburgh. It’s a great story that illustrates how Pennsylvania is already part leading us into our clean energy future.
The Alternative Energy Portfolio Standard (AEPS) is the measure that provides minimum targets for alternative energy electricity generation (with some provisions for “demand side management” or energy efficiency). The current plan goes through 2020 and must be re-set. We would like to see Tier I goals greatly expanded, and are concerned about potential efforts to expand Tier II to include more fossil fuels. These standards set our path toward a clean energy future. Start talking about them now!
Actions that would undermine the DEP’s ability to do its job include
- underfunding leading to chronic understaffing (imagine the Superbowl with just 1 referee!)
- legislating much-shorter permitting timelines
- allowing the General Assembly to review and reject any new administrative agency rules or standards
Cuts to the already-stretched budgets of the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR), could impact monitoring and enforcement around emissions, energy, and the forests and soils that currently act as carbon sinks. Budgets are moral documents indicating our priorities, not just bottom lines.
Energy efficiency measures in Act 129 will continue to be a concern in 2017. A bill passed the state Senate last year that would have allowed large commercial and industrial entities to opt out of participating in the successful program. The House did not have time to take it up. Energy efficiency is good stewardship, but there is also evidence that better energy efficiency strains the grid less, and may reduce electricity costs for households. Senator Tomlinson of the Consumer Protection Committee is expected to hold hearings on Act 129 this year-now anticipated later this spring. Fact sheets on Act 129 and the potential impacts of legislation allowing exemptions. Get ready to give testimony!
The Solar Jobs bill SB 404 has been released. Closing Pennsylvania’s solar borders would force us to meet our (very low) Alternative Energy Portfolio Standard (AEPS) solar “carve out” with solar generated *in* Pennsylvania, making sure the emissions reductions and increased jobs occur in-state. Most of our border states already do this. This 2015 article is digestible and makes the case clearly.
Currently, over 75% of “our” solar-generated electricity is sourced from outside of Pennsylvania — mostly Virginia and North Carolina. SB 404 would “grandfather” solar credits that were purchased ahead of time, so if this passes, it will be particularly helpful to increase the solar requirements of our Alternative Energy Portfolio Standards (AEPS) when they are renewed.
SB175 was introduced by Senator Reschenthaler. This bill seeks to limit state control over methane-related pollution by making federal limits the maximum limits. If this bill becomes law, it will prevent Pennsylvania from adjusting our limits as we learn more on the front lines, or even from keeping pace with limits in Colorado and Texas, two other gas-producing states!
Helpful resources (can be shared with your state Senator’s office):
- one-pager about health impacts of oil and gas operations.
- Clean Air Task Force’s Fossil Fumes report. (It’s always worth giving the short Executive Summary a read!)
- an impressive interactive map website showing how many schools are within the threat radius (1/2 mile) of wells and compressor stations. The map website also provides IR videos of methane and other pollutants escaping from drill stacks and compressor stations. Importantly, the website also openly shares the project’s sources and methods.
Not all of these toxics are greenhouse gas pollutants, but fugitive methane and the other measured toxics escape together (co-pollutants). Methane is an incredibly strong greenhouse gas pollutant (72 times stronger than carbon dioxide over the first 20 years), and when it degrades, carbon dioxide (a very long-lived greenhouse gas pollutant) is released. Methane is bad news.
UPCOMING EVENTS
*Attend the Environmental Justice Advisory Board meeting on March 7, 2017. Meeting is scheduled for 8:30 AM in the Delaware Room, Rachel Carson State Office Building, 400 Market St., Harrisburg 17101. The EJAB is charged with overseeing the implementation of the DEP’s Enhanced Public Participation Policy. It meets quarterly. The EJAB provides a forum for protecting the health of communities, especially communities wit the greatest concentration of environmental risks. All meetings are open to the public, and include a public comment period. If you wish to comment, please contact 717-783-2300 to let the office know in advance.
Plan to go if you can. Ask us for a logo to tape to the back of your clipboard or folder to visibly identify you as a PA IPL observer. RSVP contact: Carl Jones, Office of Environmental Justice by email or at (484) 250-5818. Be sure to state specifically if you wish to share concerns from your own community.
*Mark your calendar and spread the word: the next Interfaith Moral Climate Advocacy training workshop will be generously hosted by the State College Presbyterian Church on April 1 (no joke!). Read what past participants had to say.
*Save the date: on April 29, 2017 PA IPL will join the faith contingent of the People’s Climate March in Washington, DC. Several satellite marches (with faith community participation) are planned for PA, and groups are planning buses going from different parts of the state. We should soon have directions for creating faith community “prayer flags” to fly over the faith contingent in the DC march. Make 2 with your congregation: one for the DC march, and one for a nearby satellite march! (Get inspired about spreading the prayers from your tradition with this bit of background.)
PA IPL’s Sustained Advocacy Planning Group is working on
- celebrating our elected officials whenever they act as climate champions
- developing a rapid response network for occasional urgent state action
- scheduling calls and drop-bys with state senators during the course of the year.
Contact us if you would like to support (or lead or co-lead) any of those efforts.
CLOSING MEDITATION
We close each Policy Update call with a meditation or a prayer. February’s meditation is a poem about fasting and feasting, as both Christians and Baha’is enter a period of fasting in March. Read more broadly, it’s about choosing the way we see the world, and seemed important now: a time when many people who understand the urgency of climate change may need reminders to keep the urgency, but to separate it from panic- turning instead toward urgent, faithful, active hope.
Fast from judging others;
Feast on Spirit dwelling in them.
Fast from emphasis on differences;
Feast on the unity of all life.
Fast from apparent darkness
Feast on the reality of light.
Fast from thoughts of illness;
Feast on the healing power of God.
Fast from words that pollute;
Feast on phrases that purify.
Fast from discontent;
Feast on gratitude.
Fast from anger;
Feast on patience.
Fast from pessimism;
Feast on optimism.
Fast from worry;
Feast on divine order.
Fast from complaining;
Feast on appreciation.
Fast from negatives
Feast on affirmatives;
Fast from unrelenting pressures;
Feast on unceasing prayer.
Fast from hostility;
Feast on non-resistance.
Fast from bitterness;
Feast on forgiveness.
Fast from self-concern;
Feast on compassion for others.
Fast from personal anxiety;
Feast on eternal Truth.
Fast from discouragement;
Feast on hope.
Fast from facts that depress;
Feast on truths that uplift.
Fast from lethargy;
Feast on enthusiasm.
Fast from suspicion;
Feast on truth.
Fast from thoughts that weaken;
Feast on promises that inspire.
Fast from shadows of sorrow;
Feast on the sunlight of serenity.
Fast from idle gossip;
Feast on purposeful silence.
Fast from problems that overwhelm;
Feast on prayer that undergirds.
—William Arthur Ward (1921-1994)
NOTE: At the time of the call I did not have a proper attribution for this poem. Thanks to Tracey dePasquale for tracking it down! I have changed “Christ” in the first couplet to “Spirit” here, as I did on the call.
— paipl.org — PA Interfaith Power & Light —
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