Late last week the Senate quickly amended budget legislation to include a number of provisions that dramatically weaken environmental protections. These provisions include taking permitting review away from the Department of Environmental Protection, and establishing a new legislatively-appointed committee that can reject certain proposals to protect air quality . 

You can find a summary of the amendment provisions on our website. 

This amended legislation was hastily passed by the Senate, and is now before the state House of Representatives for consideration.

We urge you to contact your Representative this week and let them know that you oppose these harmful provisions. Specifically:

• That you oppose taking permitting decisions away from the Department of Environmental Protection and handing them to private interests.

• That you oppose creating a politically-appointed committee that has the ability to reject air quality protections proposed for the natural gas industry.

• That you oppose forcing the Department of Environmental Protection to approve potentially deficient permit applications solely because they have not made a final decision within a prescribed number of days.
  

You can follow our work on these issues on Twitter ( @pecpa) and Facebook, as well as our website www.pecpa.org.