Response Mixed to Bill Speeding up Solar Usage

Pennsylvania State Representative Chris Ross says the state has done to good of a job in encouraging the production of solar power. The Republican from Chester County says now there is too much of the renewable energy being produced in the state and not enough buyers. To remedy that Ross has introduced a series of bills that would force electric companies to buy more solar energy from Pennsylvania sources.

“It was probably an over complication to use two forms of stimulus at the same time. We disrupted the market place, now it’s time for us to stabilize that market place,” says Ross. In 2004 the state set the consumption mandates and in 2008 the state offered $80 million in funding for solar energy production projects.

Ross’s bill would speed up incremental steps included in the mandate that electric companies get .5% of their energy from solar by 2021. The bill also forces the electric companies to buy from Pennsylvania sources rather than out of state sources. “I see it as a correction for a distortion that unfortunately we ourselves created,” says Ross.

PennFuture President Jan Jarrett praises the bill. She says she hopes business will soon be able to sell their credits for a price that will encourage more solar production. The price of those credits dropped as supply outstripped demand.

Penn Power spokesperson Scott Surgeoner says he is in favor of using electricity produced from renewable sources but he says he wants to make sure it is done n a way that does not negatively impact the rates paid by Pennsylvania customers.

Ross’s solar jobs bill has 70 cosponsors.

Sierra Club Takes Stand on Mercury Pollution

Pittsburgh Councilwoman Natalia Rudiak teamed up with the Sierra Club to push for the Environmental Protection Agency regulating mercury pollution. Rudiak, and other council members and staff submitted hair samples as part of a nationwide program by the Sierra Club to raise awareness about the dangers of mercury. The element is a neurotoxin that can be detected in human hair.

Rudiak says coal-fired power plants are the main source. "They release things like mercury and arsenic into the air. And these pollutants actually rain down into our lakes and our streams. And they are eaten by fish, which consequently, we eat as well."

Michelle Naccarati-Chapkis, Executive Director of Women for a Healthy Environment, says mercury is know to pose health risks. "Mercury at high levels may damage the brain, kidneys and the nervous system. Mercury in the mother's body passes to the fetus via the placenta. According to the CDC and the EPA, at least one in twelve and as many as one in six American women have enough mercury in their bodies to possibly put a baby at risk."

The EPA is considering enacting tighter regulations for mercury and other air toxins. The Sierra Club and PennFuture will be sending a bus of people to Philadelphia on May 24th to for public testimony. The Sierra Club pressed the state to begin regulating mercury in 2006, but the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that it needed to be done nationally.

PennFuture: DEP, DCNR Budget Cuts "Worrisome"

Governor Ed Rendell will be in Mechanicsburg later this morning to sign Pennsylvania's $28.05 billion budget for the fiscal year that started Thursday. Following that he will travel to Towanda, Bradford County to discuss the agreement to vote in October on a Marcellus Shale gas extraction tax. Leaders have just about agreed on taxing gas extraction but the percentage and how the revenues would be distributed among the state, host municipalities and environmental programs have not been resolved.

The budget includes cuts in funding for the Department of Agriculture, libraries and parks. A top environmental advocate says cuts to the Department of Environmental Protection and the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources are “worrisome.” PennFuture president Jan Jarrett says she’s more troubled by the nearly $10 million dollars trimmed from the DCNR budget than the $13.8 million eliminated from the DEP budget, since the latter agency receives significant support from the federal government.
Jarrett says she’s worried DCNR staffers won’t be able to adequately monitor natural gas drilling in the state forests, after a 30 percent reduction in Bureau of Forestry funding.
House Speaker Keith McCall says lawmakers will restore some of that environmental funding with revenue from a natural gas severance tax, but Jarrett is skeptical.

"What we have right now – we don’t have a severance tax. We’ve got a promise. First of all, the promise has got to be fulfilled on October 1. And secondly, the devil will be in the details, in terms of how much the state can expect from that – in the rate and the structure of the tax are going to be very important."

Governor Rendell says funding for DEP’s drilling inspectors remained untouched.

Drill Industry Lobbying For Tax Loopholes

Environmental advocates are warning against exemptions and loopholes in a proposed severance tax bill.
The budget touted by Governor Ed Rendell and House Democrats includes a tax on natural gas drilling.
None of the tax proposals currently in the House include an exemption for wells in their first three years of operation, but Representative Dave Levdansky, an Allegheny County Democrat, says the drilling industry is lobbying for one.

"Why do we need to give the gas drilling industry any more incentive than they already have to come to Pennsylvania and drill? They are here. And they are here for some very significant reasons that will not at all be impacted by granting them exclusions from the tax."

Governor Rendell has proposed transferring revenue from several environmental funds into the general fund, in order to trim Pennsylvania’s deficit.
PennFuture CEO Jan Jarrett says a severance tax would eliminate the need for such a move.
"If we can get a severance tax in place, there’s not the need to take these drastic cuts that we’re taking to very important environmental programs that benefit Pennsylvanians all over the state."

Jarrett says Rendell’s proposal would “eviscerate” environmental protection funds.
A new report from the left-leaning Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center claims a three year exemption means more than 40 percent of the gas yielded from an average well would go untaxed, since wells are typically more productive early on.
House leaders have tried to pass a severance tax twice in recent weeks, but both times, they pulled the measure due to a lack of support.