HB 965: The latest attack on environmental protection.

It's typically easy to tell if a piece of legislation is aimed at helping polluters, no matter how hard policymakers try to hide it. Take the General Assembly's recent effort to eliminate new environmental regulations on conventional oil and gas. While the language was buried in a little read bill, it's intent was plain as day.

For the General Assembly's next attack on the environment, they're trying a new tactic - bury their intent in regulatory legalese. In April, the Senate took up a non-controversial bill (Senate Bill 562) that its legislative sponsor, Senator Gordner (R-Bloomsburg), argued would provide the General Assembly more time to study and assess new regulations making their way through the independent review process. The bill quickly passed unanimously, with little debate, and no media fanfare.

The House then took up a similar bill (House Bill 965) and its sponsor, Rep. Godshall (R-Montgomery), made the same legislative oversight argument Sen. Gordner made about his bill. But with many fundamentally important environmental regulations working through the review process such as the Clean Power Plan, new oil and gas rules, and methane leakage regulations, PennFuture and other organizations took a closer look at the bill language and found something troubling.

The legislation is essentially a Trojan horse. It does include language that would give the General Assembly a defined amount of time to review new regulations before it makes it to the final independent review steps, which already include review by legislators. But it also grants new power to the standing committees of the legislature to delay - potentially indefinitely - any regulation they don't like. It also blocks state agencies from publicly posting their regulatory intent and goals in the Pennsylvania Bulletin. In other words, House Bill 965 and Senate Bill 562, in a convoluted way, aim to provide the legislature constitutionally debatable veto power over new regulations while greatly limiting public transparency.

To put it bluntly, this legislation puts not just environmental rules in jeopardy, but any regulatory matter in limbo.

Once the true intent of the legislation was made apparent, a real debate on the bill ensued in the House. Last week, after contentious debate, House Bill 965 passed 113-84, with all but one Democratic member and five Republican members voting against it. Because there were differences between the House and Senate versions, the Senate has now taken up House Bill 965 in an attempt to quickly pass it before it adjourns for the remainder of the year.

It's critical that this bill fail to make it into law as it imperils many major environmental efforts to clean the Commonwealth's air, land, and waters for present and future generations.

Matt Stepp is policy director for PennFuture and is based in Philadelphia. He tweets @MatthewStepp.

VICTORY: The 2010 clean water regulations

This post is one in a month-long series speaking to 15 of PennFuture's significant victories. It was 15 years ago this September that we began our work to protect the environment and champion a clean energy economy.

In 2010, Pennsylvania adopted a pair of crucial clean water regulations that protect the drinking water of millions of Pennsylvanians and the health of our very best streams. PennFuture worked in concert with a coalition of organizations to pass both regulations.

One regulation protects over 20,000 miles of our best streams by requiring that new development projects along Exceptional Value and High Quality streams must maintain a 150-foot buffer between earth disturbances and the waterways. These buffers are one of the most cost-effective and best management practices available to control sediment and nutrient pollution of our streams and rivers. Vegetative buffers also reduce storm water pollution, create and protect wildlife habitat, and are vital to the health of cold water fish species.

The other regulation created a total dissolved solids (TDS) standard for waste water treatment that protects aquatic life and the quality of our drinking water. In particular, the regulation requires gas drilling companies that discharge water polluted with TDS to treat the discharges to meet safe drinking water standards.

In 2008, high TDS levels in the Monongahela River south of Pittsburgh affected the drinking water supplied to over 330,000 people. The high TDS levels also threatened to shut down industrial facilities, including some owned by U.S. Steel, that depend on fresh river water for their operations.

Unconventional shale gas operations usually result in high levels of TDS, primarily chlorides, because of substances in the shale that dissolve during hydrofracturing operations. Thanks to these regulations, the drilling industry now must treat its waste water to the higher standards. As a result, more and more gas companies are moving to recycle their waste water.

PennFuture will celebrate 15 years of environmental victories on September 25. Please consider joining us!