Category: Environment

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STATEMENT: Senate Democrats Pass Inflation Reduction Act To Lower Drug Prices, Make Health Care and Energy Costs More Affordable

  By Climate Change, Drug costs, Energy, Environment, Health Care, PA Budget and Policy Center, Statements

For Immediate Release: August 7, 2022 Contact: Kirstin Snow, snow@pennbpc.org Senate Democrats Pass Inflation Reduction Act To Lower Drug Prices, Make Health Care and Energy Costs More Affordable Historic Bill to Curb Big Pharma and Make Corporations Pay What They Owe Moves Towards Passage Harrisburg, PA — Following the U.S. Senate’s passage of the Inflation Reduction Act—a bill that will enact historic drug pricing reform, reduce health insurance costs, lower energy costs, and reduce the national deficit—Marc Stier, director of the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center, released the following statement:    The U.S. Senate’s vote to pass the Inflation Reduction Act makes historic progress on many fronts. It takes a huge step forward in addressing the threat of climate change by investing $370 billion in a series of incentives to encourage the replacement of fossil fuels with clean, renewable energy. This legislation will put the United States on a path… Continue reading

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The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act: A Major Step Forward

  By Environment, Federal Budget, Infrastructure, Statements

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act: A Major Step Forward Statement from PA Budget and Policy Center, Keystone Research Center, and 99% PA Campaign In passing the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act last night, the House of Representatives advanced the first of two parts of President Biden’s investment agenda. The over $1 billion infrastructure bill will generate the largest expenditure on the physical infrastructure of our country in decades. It will make huge new investments in roads and bridges, railroads and public transit, clean drinking water, high-speed internet, and repairing the damage to land and water from extractive industries. These and other investments will reduce costs for businesses and consumers, make our economy more competitive, and together with the second part of the Build Back Better plan, create an average of 1.5 million good new jobs per year, many of which will be unionized. It takes time to enact major… Continue reading

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Lawmakers Should Take a Mulligan When Governor Wolf Vetoes Tax Credit for More Petro Plants

  By Economic Development, Environment, Marcellus Shale, PA Budget and Policy Center, PBPC Blog posts

HARRISBURG – Keystone Research Center economist Stephen Herzenberg and Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center director Marc Stier issued the following statement in the wake of the Pennsylvania General Assembly’s approval yesterday of a multimillion-dollar tax credit for future petrochemical and fertilizer plants that use Pennsylvania natural gas as a feedstock. “We strongly urge Governor Wolf to veto HB 1100, an  inadequately considered subsidy for petrochemical companies and then urge lawmakers of both parties to reconsider their support so that the governor’s veto is sustained. Doubling down on subsidies for petrochemical and plastics companies at this moment of history is like buying more deck chairs for the Titanic.” “The minimum due diligence the Pennsylvania General Assembly should demand of itself is to ask the Independent Fiscal Office to evaluate the advisability of this subsidy, considering: the consequences of expanding petrochemical production in western Pennsylvania for carbon emissions and other pollutants, and… Continue reading

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What Has to Change and What Doesn’t: A First Look at Klein

  By Environment, Philosophy, Political Organizing, Politics, Progressive Politics, Public Policy

Introduction I’d been planning to read “This Changes Everything (TCE)” for a few months, both because I want to learn more about the climate change issue and because I want to learn more about Naomi Klein’s take on the world. I’ve doing preliminary work on a project of my own on progressive political and policy strategy. (I’m also finishing another book now about sexuality and politics but I always work on two projects at once.) I finally started the book a week or so ago because my friend Cate Poe invited to join an on-line reading group. I’m only about half way through at the moment so this is a preliminary report, some of my initial thoughts on the book. I normally wouldn’t write anything until I was done with a book and spent a good deal of time thinking about it, but I feel some obligation to Cate to… Continue reading

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Penn ACTION joins Gas Truth Protest

  By Marcellus Shale, Penn ACTION

Members of Penn ACTION joined a few hundred Pennsylvanians from all over the state at the Gas Truth protest at the inauguration of Governor Tom Corbett. Organized by Gas Truth and Clean Water Action, the rally called on Corbett to protect the state from the potential dangers of the drilling for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale. A variety of opinions were presented by the speakers at the event. Many called for a moratorium on all drilling. All called for a moratorium on drilling in the state forrests. Many called for a severence tax on natural gas. Penn ACTION Executive Director, Marc Stier, was the closing speaker at the rally. Stier focused on the political danger of natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania saying that our democracy is one of the few things more important than our water. “Just as as the hydrofracking process have polluted our waters, the natural gas drillers have… Continue reading

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Marcellus Shale Conference Follow-up

  By Marcellus Shale Conference

Thank you so much for your energy, participation, and ideas at last weekend’s “Building a Stronger Movement: PA Statewide Conference on Gas Drilling” in Harrisburg. Your commitment to this cause and our powerful network is why we will win strong protection for Pennsylvania’s land, water, and air. But we’re not stopping there. We are going to get our cause out there in communities all across Pennsylvania so that the politicians will have to listen. Here’s what you can do: 1.       Join a statewide phonebank! On Wednesday night we will be running a statewide, non-partisan phonebank to get environmentalists out to vote. We need your help to make as many calls as possible. From home you can call out through a TOLL-FREE, 800 number and be connected to as many Pennsylvanians as you can. Go here to RSVP:  http://www.conservepennsylvania.org/environmental-phone-bank-october-27/ 2.       Plan an earned media event in your community this week. This… Continue reading

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Pennsylvania….you have a gas problem.

  By Marcellus Shale Conference

I’m sorry to be the one that brings this up, but… Pennsylvania: You have a gas problem. I’m probably not the only one that’s noticed the layer of rock a mile deep in the earth under you, filled with little bubbles of….well, to put it politely, “natural gas.” And I’m probably not the only one that’s noticed that there are multiple gas companies with heavy pollution records drilling mile-deep holes to crack that rock open with chemicals that cause nerve damage and leukemia and kidney damage…which are now beginning to leak into our waterways. I’m sorry. But it’s a problem, and we can’t really ignore it anymore. It’s not just the pollution… it’s also the quantity. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection expects that over the next 10 years, the state will be punctured with 30,000 of these unslightly drill wells, which each suck 2-5 million gallons of water from… Continue reading

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Statewide Conference on Drilling in the Marcellus Shale

  By Marcellus Shale, Marcellus Shale Conference

     BUILDING A STRONGER MOVEMENT: STATEWIDE CONFERENCE ON NATURAL GAS DRILLING      For community groups, activists, and residents concerned about the effects of drilling in the Marcellus Shale. Saturday, October 16, 2010 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. Radisson Hotel Harrisburg 1150 Camp Hill Bypass, Camp Hill, PA 17011 Participating organizations: ACLU, Campaign for Clean Water, Common Cause, Clean Water Action, Protecting our Waters, Democracy for America, Responsible Drilling Alliance, Sierra Club, Trout Unlimited, Delaware Riverkeepers Network, Penn Future, Penn Environment, and many more. The extraction of natural gas in Pennsylvania has been going on largely with minimal state and federal oversight. This conference is an opportunity to exchange information about natural gas drilling or “fracking” and learn how to make our voices heard in the Marcellus Shale debate.Conference topics include: Best practices of how to wage a winning campaign Training on organizing and getting your message out How… Continue reading

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Marcellus Shale State Wide Conference

  By Marcellus Shale

Building a Stronger Movement: Statewide Conference on Natural Gas Drilling Sponsored by Penn Action and Conservation PA Saturday, October 16, 2010 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. Radisson Hotel Harrisburg 1150 Camp Hill Bypass, Camp Hill, PA 17011 You are invited: a conference for community groups, activists, and homeowners who are concerned about effects of drilling in the Marcellus Shale. The lack of federal oversight on natural gas drilling has left us with little protection against the potential dangers of fracking to extract gas from the valuable Marcellus Shale in our state. Penn Action and Conservation Pennsylvania are convening this conference to share knowledge and learn how to make our voices heard in the Marcellus Shale debate: Strategy of winning advocacy efforts Trainings on organizing and getting your message out How to build an organization, fundraise, and do outreach Success stories from different regions of the state Networking And more. Who… Continue reading

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The old romanticism and the new environmentalism

  By Environment, Philosophy

Political environmentalism is a movement shaped by twentieth century romanticism. And that is one source of its political difficulties, especially in America. Twentietth century romanticism presumes a sharp divide between the creativity of the arts, which draws inspiration from the untamed natural world we perceive with our unaided senses, and the routinized development of scientific knowledge whose goal is to give us the power to transform, and thereby destroy, nature with our machines. It thinks of the natural state of nature as pure, peaceful, and unchanging and humans as malignant interlopers in thus natural world. Thus it looks incessantly back to the past¸ to the time before mankind interfered with the natural world and it only appreciates with some reluctance how we use technology to shape the natural world to serve the interests of human beings. This is a romanticism that stands against both science and humanism. And, the environmental movement it has inspired… Continue reading