From Pennsylvania Interfaith Power and Light (http://www.paipl.org):
ACTION ITEMS
Federal
The Clean Power Plan (CPP) repeal review has a new comment deadline: April 26, 2018. Please submit testimony! Experts will write expert testimony. Citizen testimony may focus on personal and community impacts and religious convictions. Here is PA IPL’s testimony at the hearings on the final Clean Power Plan rules in 2014. Label your comments with “Comments on Docket #EPA-HQ-OAR-2017-0355” Submit them online, via email, or by snail mail.
Federal courts have delayed the hearing for the climate change case brought by 21 youth, giving religious communities more time to teach, learn, and study about the Our Children’s Trust. Learn more about the case and the 1000 teachings religious initiative at paipl.org.
State
Governor Wolf has grown forgetful about various promises related to climate change. He needs to act on methane. Every week that passes is a week in which the Governor has chosen not to act to protect the 1.5 million Pennsylvanians who live within ½ a mile of natural gas infrastructure, not to mention all the people impacted by climate destabilization. Read the methane e-letter from our friends at the Clean Air Council, and consider signing it or crafting your own letter.
The Pennsylvania Utility Commission (PUC) is considering how to interpret Act 40, the recently-passed bill that “closed our solar borders” to make sure that we are actually producing the solar-generated electricity for which we give ourselves credit. We are concerned that both credits and out-of-state agreements will be grandfathered, effectively cancelling the legislation.
Article from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Basic language and the address and docket number for individual comments.
The PA Department of Transportation has released an e-survey to get input toward their Bicycle and Pedestrian master plan. Scroll down to the big blue “take the survey” button
We invite you to use the notes box to highlight some areas not deeply addressed by the survey:
- bike/pedestrian connectivity to public transport
- low income community access
- tool and maintenance stations
DISCUSSION HOOKS:
A peer-reviewed Duke study (that we’ve since learned builds on work done at Penn State) showing that wastewater from conventional oil and gas drilling is often radioactive. (Data from Pittsburgh and western PA)
Current issue in front of the House and Senate: infrastructure. The language we like to use is that “infrastructure is a covenant with the future,” first found in the PA IPL Board Resolution calling for No New Fossil Fuel Infrastructure.
POSITIVE NEWS
Municipalities – including Philadelphia (includes survey!), Pittsburgh (overviews by CityLab and Pittsburgh CityPaper) — are getting serious about specific clean energy, low-emission targets and plans. Read about commitments by Lehigh Valley cities and colleges.
The Pittsburgh Presbytery (the formal regional conference of the Presbyterian Church) met recently and — with a great deal of leadership from the Rev. John Creasy and other members of the Presbytery’s Peacemaking Team — voted to
- support the national divestment overture
- commit to act to align energy use with values in member houses of worship
- oppose the Shell “cracker” plants (which use fracking products to create materials for manufacturing plastics, increasing the market and demand)
John Creasy’s blog post. Pittsburgh Post Gazette article, which was reprinted in Shell’s newsletter.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), known as a rubber-stamp for fossil fuel and nuclear industry, rejected a plan that would have subsidized electricity generation for plants with a 90 day fuel stockpile (equivalent to coal and nuclear).
In doing so, it followed findings of a Department of Energy fall 2017 study, though not their proposed plan. The lack of brownouts or blackouts during the recent Arctic blast showed such stockpiles are not needed. We can further reduce spikes with energy efficiency and renewables/storage.
EPA Administrator Pruitt — a frequent climate change minimizer/denier —recently voiced concerns about methane emissions as potent greenhouse gases.
A bipartisan group of 106 Representatives wrote a letter calling for the President to recognize climate change as a national security threat and a threat multiplier; Signers included members of the House Climate Solutions Caucus and others; 6 are from Pennsylvania. 4 Rs, 2Ds: Dent, Costello, Fitzpatrick, Meehan. Boyle, Cartwright. All but Dent are members of the House Climate Solutions Caucus. Neither Dent nor Meehan is running for re-election.
BACKGROUND
Solar tariffs to “protect” USA solar jobs are misguided and/or too late.
There are many more Solar jobs in installation and non-panel manufacturing. Panel manufacturing already took the hit…. too late to protect them.
Arkansas IPL tells us that there, installers are already buying and installing Chinese modules that are made in Jackson, Mississippi. And the workforce is led by military veterans. We are also hearing that this tariff will have a greater impact on utility -scale installations than on residential.
We can ask lawmakers: We don’t place tariffs on fossil fuel imports; help me understand why we would limit solar, but not fossil fuels?
In the PA House and Senate we are seeing new and continuing attempts to limit or eliminate regulation without discussion of how to manage costs and harms to the public; we’ll keep you informed of specifics, but they’re likely to be myriad, and ever-changing — eep focused on this as an overall concern, and we can plug in bill numbers or specifics as they are timely.
There are positive clean-energy, low-emissions transition bills at both the Federal and State levels. Review federal info here. At the state level, we are in a short strategic hold, in discussions with partners. We will likely have a call specific to this effort in the next quarter.
The RECLAIM act is a bill that would release existing money for cleanup in mining communities. There is a good faith-voice support OpEd here, and we’ve previously signed faith-partner support letters.
Primary elections will be heating up, and we will be thinking about the most strategic and generative questions for candidates that raise the profile of just transition, clean energy, and climate impact response. We do not support particular candidates, but we *do* work with partners such as the League of Women Voters to get “our” questions into conversations with candidates.
In our calls we will focus our discussion on these questions:
- What are our opportunities to effectively and strategically support transition goals?
- Where can we shine light on disproportionate burdens?
- How can we remind leaders of their missions and promises?
- How can our faith communities lead in word and example?
DISCUSSION and REGIONAL REPORTS
Members in State College PA-05 are trying new strategy: an invitation to Congressman to attend a Saturday breakfast with a climate speaker where he picks the date. Now working on something in May/June — down to 6 options. We’re making it hard for him to be unavailable!
The Delaware River Basin Commission is considering banning fracking in the basin as a protection (in part) against contamination from frackwater disposal in the watershed. Hearings were concurrent to the call, so several Eastern PA members are there. Additional public hearing are scheduled for Feb. 22 in Schnecksville, and a teleconference on March 5. Public comments accepted through 5 PM on March 30. Public hearings, and links and directions for submitting written comment are all on the page with the proposed regulation links.
UPCOMING faith/advocacy events.
February 10 The Union of Concerned Scientists and our friends from Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) are working together to do an relationship-rooted advocacy training day. Great opportunity to increase your skills, or, for folks who have experience and have been to a PA IPL workshop, to tune-up, meet new folks, and add an intro to “power-mapping.”
May 21: Our friends at Lutheran Advocacy Ministry in Pennsylvania host an annual mini-conference and advocacy day. The conference is Lutheran, but anyone is welcome to register; The advocacy afternoon is open to all people of faith, and will include an opportunity to add on a dinner/reception in the Capitol Rotunda with interfaith and secular water and climate change programming. Learn more.
MEDITATION
We always end our calls (and call summaries) with a meditation. Tu b’shvat was 1/30. It is a minor (but lovely) Jewish holiday, sometimes referred to as New Year of the Trees, “Jewish Arbor Day.” In honor of that, we shared This poem from Wendell Berry (source linked below).
I go among trees and sit still.
All my stirring becomes quiet
around me like circles on water.
My tasks lie in their places
where I left them, asleep like cattle.
Then what is afraid of me comes
and lives a while in my sight.
What it fears in me leaves me,
and the fear of me leaves it.
It sings, and I hear its song.
Then what I am afraid of comes.
I live for a while in its sight.
What I fear in it leaves it,
and the fear of it leaves me.
It sings, and I hear its song.
After days of labor,
mute in my consternations,
I hear my song at last,
and I sing it. As we sing,
the day turns, the trees move.
Wendell Berry
found in several collections including This Day: Collected and New Sabbath Poems
Leave a Reply