Tell PA General Assembly to Uphold Veto on Taxpayer Handouts to Petrochemical Industries

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

Back in February, the Pennsylvania legislature voted to pass a proposal that would give massive tax breaks to dirty fracking, petrochemical, and plastic companies.

Fortunately, Governor Wolf has used his executive power to veto this disastrous polluter handout. But our fight isn’t over. The legislature plans to attempt to override Gov. Wolf’s veto.

Email your state Representative and state Senator today at https://pennenvironment.webaction.org/p/dia/action4/common/public/?action_KEY=37177 and ask them to support the Governor’s veto and oppose massive taxpayer handouts to dirty frackers.

By giving a decades-long blank check to these deep-pocketed polluters, our politicians are setting Pennsylvania up for more climate change pollution and more single-use plastics littering our neighborhoods, oceans, and planet.

The legislation is House Bill 1100 and the tax break created by this bill is estimated to be worth $660 million per project.¹ That means hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks to fracking companies, the petrochemical industry, and corporations that fuel our addiction to single-use plastics.

Even though thousands of concerned citizens called on their elected officials to oppose HB1100 — and the environmental community was unanimous in its opposition to this anti-environmental proposal — an overwhelming majority of legislators chose to side with the frackers instead of their constituents and our environment.²

Help us stop this bill in its tracks by asking your legislators to support Governor Wolf’s veto of HB1100.

Every day, hard-working Pennsylvanians pay their fair share in taxes. The fossil fuel and plastics industries that are already some of the richest corporations on the planet are the last things that need a tax break.

We all know that there are many important priorities that are in dire need of funding in Pennsylvania like our state parks and forests, the Department of Environmental Protection, our crumbling infrastructure, and our schools. HB1100 means that there will be less money in state coffers for these important programs.

It’s crucial that your legislator hears from concerned constituents like you that they must vote to uphold Gov. Wolf’s veto, not let this egregious polluter tax break go into effect.

So, send a message to your state representative and senator–we pay our fair share in taxes and so frackers should too.

Then, forward this to your friends and family and ask them to do the same.

Politicians in Harrisburg will keep siding with polluters as long as they think constituents like you and me aren’t paying attention or don’t care. Let’s remind them that our planet and health come first.

David Masur
Director

1. Mark Scolforo, “Governor plans to veto natural gas manufacturing credit,” Associated Press, Feb 5, 2020.
2. “House Bill 1100; Regular Session 2019-2020,” Pennsylvania General Assembly, Last Accessed February 10, 2020.