From Pennsylvania Interfaith Power and Light (http://www.paipl.org):
In this note you will find highlights from the April 2017 PA IPL climate policy briefing call, beginning with opportunities for action and witness. These monthly calls are intended to build our knowledge base so that we can more quickly understand emerging issues and questions. The next call will be held on May 25th 12:30-1:30. New people may sign up by contacting Cricket Hunter.
In this update:
– take action
– federal policy updates
– Pennsylvania policy updates
– upcoming events
– closing meditation
TAKE ACTION
Federal action opportunities
Let your Representatives and Senators know whether you support the bipartisan, bicameral “Nonprofit Energy Efficiency Act.” This act would establish a new pilot program at the U.S. Department of Energy to provide financial grants to non-profit organizations to help make buildings they own and operate more energy efficient, specifically because non-profits cannot take advantage of tax break incentives to become more efficient. Use your address to find your Senators and Congressman. The bill is S.981 in the Senate, and H.R.2197 in the House. Press release.
Regulation and enforcement of climate pollution are areas targeted by an Executive Order to streamline executive agencies. You can still submit written comments here and we encourage you to do so. Comments may be pasted into the text box, or uploaded as a PDF. As always, we encourage you to comment as a person of faith, linking your comments with your deeply-held convictions. Others will comment with technical expertise (though of course you may offer any that you happen to have). The EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation (OAR) is the office that addresses climate change. This page also gives detailed instructions about submitting comments any time before May 15.
State action opportunities
HB 409 has passed, and so SB 269 will make it almost impossible to modernize our building code to assure efficiency measures (PA is years behind industry standard!). Of course you can reach out to your state senator, and if you believe we should have an up to date state building code, you can let the Governor know that you hope he will veto any bill which makes it difficult to modernize and update our building code standards. See below for more information.
Sign up to be part of the statewide PA Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) hearings on environmental justice taking part around the state in May. Contact: Director Carl Jones, Jr., Esq. caejone@pa.gov, (484) 250-5818. Attend a hearing in your area. Help people with stories get to the hearings. Invite journalists and lawmakers to the hearings. These hearings are the result of official letters following the revelation that Range Resources avoids big houses to avoid lawsuits and regulatory hassles. Attend in person. Submit comments in person or online by May 25.
FEDERAL UPDATE SUMMARY
The “Nonprofit Energy Efficiency Act” is a bi-partisan, bi-cameral bill introduced in the United States Senate by Senators John Hoeven (R-ND) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), and in the House of Representatives by Representatives Matt Cartwright (D-PA) and Carlos Curbelo (R-FL). The bill is S.981 in the Senate, and H.R.2197 in the House. If passed, this legislation will establish a new pilot program at the U.S. Department of Energy to provide financial grants to non-profit organizations to help make buildings they own and operate more energy efficient. It is particularly aimed at non-profits because they cannot take advantage of tax incentives that other companies can use.
Press release by one of the bill co-sponsors (from PA!). Fact sheet by the Orthodox Union.
STATE UPDATE SUMMARY
Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency
HB 409 has passed in the PA House, and will result in significant revisions to the Building Code Adoption process. The Senate version of this bill – SB 269 – is on second consideration. Pennsylvania hasn’t updated its codes since 2009, and passed a law complicating the adoption process in 2011. This bill further complicates the adoption process for new, industry-standard codes. Further, it sets a delay process of at least 4.5 years before Pennsylvania could potentially update its code, meaning the Commonwealth will always be behind the rest of the country. The Governor has said he is opposed, but the House and Senate have worked hard to strike a bicameral deal, with one procedural point on which they still disagree.
SB 234 would authorize a Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy program (C-PACE, allowing municipalities to voluntarily opt to create local C-PACE programs to advance certain kinds of energy work in commercial buildings. Similar legislation already exists in 30 other states. If SB 234 passes, PA IPL will urge any municipalities or counties that take it up to include only truly clean “Tier I” technologies in our Alternative Energy Portfolio Standards, in order to not end up financing the “Tier II” cocktail which includes some high-emitting technologies like waste coal, or some measures that would likely lead to increased fossil fuel infrastructure. (Read the PA IPL board resolution calling for no new fossil fuel infrastructure.)
Sen. Boscola released a co-sponsor memo (SCO 778) indicating that she intends to re-introduce her industrial opt-out from Act 129. Act 129 has been an incredibly successful tool for energy conservation and to reduce fossil fuel emissions. Based on last session’s version of the bill (SB 805), this would allow large industrial energy consumers – such as Air Products and Alcoa – to opt-out of the energy efficiency program, greatly reducing the amount of investment in efficiency and lowering the efficiency targets. Other states, including Ohio and Indiana, have implemented similar bills to devastating effect on the states’ energy efficiency industry — and a large impact on maximum electricity load on the aging electricity grid.
Fact sheet on the benefits of Act 129 by the Keystone Energy Efficiency Association.
Regulatory Process
SB 624 requires legislative approval of regulations costing greater than $1 million. It was introduced a couple of weeks ago by Sen. Scarnati and Sen. Yaw. No co-sponsor memo was circulated. It currently resides in the Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee (ERE). It amends the Bituminous Mine Subsidence and Land Conservation Act to require that if DEP approves an underground mine plan, it cannot consider presumptive evidence the mine could cause pollution or permanent damage to streams. The bill is retroactive to all permits issued and heard by the Environmental Hearing Board after June 30, 2016, so it could impact the case pending an Environmental Hearing Board (EHB) decision brought by the Sierra Club and the Center for Coalfield Justice against Consol’s planned mine under Ryerson Station State Park.
HB 911 requires legislative approval of regulations costing greater than $1 million – by a majority vote in both houses, effectively creating a legislative veto. By its singular focus, this bill elevates economic growth above other concerns of citizens and residents of the Commonwealth such as public health and those rights stipulated in the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in Article 1, Section 27.
SB 175 bars PA from implementing methane regulations more stringent than those of the federal government, despite the fact that Pennsylvania is on the leading edge of methane emissions (and impacts), and despite Colorado, a similarly impacted state, having introduced stronger standards.
Clean Air Task Force fact sheet on health impacts of methane pollution in PA.
Other news
Sonoco and Energy Transfer Partners Pennsylvania news:
– Pipeline leak in Berks County
– Writ of posession issued in eminent domain case for the Mariner East 2 pipeline.
Report: 2016 renewable energy jobs in PA
UPCOMING EVENTS
- May 1 Science Roundtable: No charge. The event was livestreamed on PennFuture’s Facebook page. Overview. Video here (You’ll have to scroll down to find “We’re live! Join us for our special Climate Science and Society Seminar” among the other videos.)
- May 5 Delaware Valley Green Building Council 7th annual Sustainability Symposium
- May 9 PA IPL Bidder 70 Film and Fundraiser, State College.
- May 9-10. The third annual Pennsylvania solar summit in Harrisburg.
- May 11- 14 Expanding Democracy in an age of Polarization and Resistance at Pendle Hill Retreat Center, Wallingford. (Not climate-change specific, but applicable, and faith-rooted)
- May 19 – 24 PA IPL’s PA-to-DC Bike Ride. Blessing and sendoff on the afternoon of Friday, May 19, and conclude with Hill Visits on Wednesday, May 24 (call your legislators while the cyclists are en route to let them know you are following the cyclists and looking forward to hearing about their visits — it makes a huge difference.)
- May 20 Climate Change: why your voice matters (families welcome) at Riverside Park in Huntingdon
- May 22 Lutheran Day in the Capitol (Harrisburg). Register.
As covered above and last month, PA DEP announced a series of environmental justice listening sessions starting in mid-April. List of remaining sessions below; a link to all scheduled meetings and locations is here, and comments may also be submitted electronically (see Take Action, above.)
- Allentown – May 11
- Lancaster – May 15
- City of Chester (Delaware County) – May 23
- Philadelphia – May 25
CLOSING MEDITATION
We close each Policy Update call with a meditation or prayer.
April included both Easter and Passover, and the Earth’s own celebration is leaping up in front of our eyes. It is the season when, in the words of Beth Norcross of the Center for Spirituality in Nature “death nurtures new life” — we see fall leaves decomposing and shoots coming up right through, drawing new nutrients.
This hymn from Easter is poetic and will echo that idea…. and Christians will hear the Resurrection message central to their tradition:
Now the green blade rises
from the buried grain
Wheat that in dark earth
many days has lain.
Love lives again
that with the dead has been
Love is come again like wheat that springs up green.
The Passover message, too, is about good overcoming Evil, about patience and persistence and Spirit bringing forth a new thriving community. Celebrate the green shoots, the buds yet to burst, and know that they came from rich soil, and are supported by deep roots.
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