Tell PA General Assembly to Support Budget with Increased Funding for Environmental Agencies to Do Their Work

From PennFuture (http://www.pennfuture.org):

Budget negotiations are underway in Harrisburg as lawmakers work to pass a new spending plan by the June 30 deadline, and it’s important for our elected officials to hear from constituents about our priorities and concerns.

As you know, Pennsylvania is fortunate to have 86,000 miles of streams and 121 state parks. Across the Commonwealth, there are over 53,000 farms, an important part of our economy and heritage as well as a leading contributor of polluted rivers. The mission of our state agencies such as the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR), is to protect and enhance these resources. In turn, it’s the General Assembly’s responsibility to ensure the agencies have the proper funding to carry out their missions.

Unfortunately, over the past two decades, budget items that protect Pennsylvania’s natural resources have been slashed, leading to many deficiencies in staffing, capacity, and infrastructure. For example,

From 2002 to 2017, DEP experienced budget cuts of nearly 40 percent which led to an estimated 30 percent decrease in staff. The DEP is funded woefully behind FY 2003 funding levels, which peaked at $246 million. These cuts make it difficult for the agency to meet its permitting demands, match federal grants, and compromise its ability to maintain state authority over its compliance and enforcement programs.

The DCNR has a $1.4 billion infrastructure backlog of hundreds of repair and improvement projects from roads and trails to stormwater management and water resources.

The budget plan unveiled by Gov. Tom Wolf in February called for increasing funding for the DEP by $5 million, which would allow the agency to add 41 full-time staff, and increasing funding for DCNR by $2.4 million, which would allow the agency to add 31 full-time staff.

Please do your part today. Contact your elected officials in the House of Representatives and Senate at https://pennfuture.salsalabs.org/agencyfunding/index.html and ask them to support a budget that includes increased funding for our state agencies, which will allow those agencies to better protect our air, land, water and natural resources for future generations. 

Thank you.