11/18/24 - 107 New Stories - REAL Environmental & Conservation Leadership In PA: http://tinyurl.com/3zb7jppr
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Environmental Groups Say Conservation Programs Suffered Larger Cuts Than Others
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Members of the Pennsylvania Alliance for Restoration and Conservation this week called on Gov. Rendell and the General Assembly to invest a portion of the proposed $107 million severance fee on drilling for natural gas in Pennsylvania to environmental protection and improvement through the Environmental Stewardship Fund.
“We agree with the governor that these are desperate economic times, and they call for everyone to bear their share of the burden, but we cannot miss this opportunity to invest in the future of our land and water,” said Jan Jarrett, president and CEO of Citizens for Pennsylvania’s Future (PennFuture). “The Marcellus Shale gas deposit has the potential to make Pennsylvania the Saudi Arabia of natural gas. It needs to be recovered responsibly and drillers should pay their fair share of fixing any damage to our natural resources that drilling causes.”
“These economic times call for shared sacrifice," said Andy Loza of the Pennsylvania Land Trust Association, “but, in the proposed budget, conservation programs have lost far more than others. Even before the state budget imploded with our faltering economy, the Environmental Stewardship Fund had been reduced by 40 percent, or $29 million annually, to pay off bond debt. And the governor plans to divert $174 million – or 92 percent – of the Oil and Gas Lease Fund to pay for general state operations, leaving environmental infrastructure needs unmet.
"As gas drilling impacts our natural resources, the natural gas severance fee provides an opportunity to reinvest in our natural resources — to protect our streams, safeguard our drinking water, restore our parks and conserve our productive farms and community open spaces,” said Loza. “The proposed fee for drilling for natural gas is long overdue,” said David Masur, director of PennEnvironment. “Unlike 39 other states, drillers here have not had to pay a fee for extracting our natural resources. And unless part of this fee goes to environmental protection and cleanup, funds for reinvesting in our parks, forests and other green infrastructure will continue to evaporate – just when public works efforts and great green jobs could be most beneficial to the economy. A severance tax invested at least in part in the Environmental Stewardship Fund could make Pennsylvania a better place to live, work and play.”
Gov. Rendell has proposed earmarking all of the natural gas severance tax to go into the General Fund. The tax is expected to generate $107 million in 2009-10 increasing to $631.9 million in 2013-14.
In addition to the concerns raised by PARC, the Pennsylvania Environmental Council pointed out in a recent op-ed that over the last seven years, more than $784 million in environmental funding has been diverted to balance the budget or to other programs which could not get funding on their own. This total includes:
-- $174 million in Marcellus Shale leasing revenue from the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources to balance the budget in 2008-09;
-- $324 million intended to support wastewater plant operations over the last six years to balance the budget;
-- $100 million in 2002 from the Underground Storage Tank cleanup insurance fund to balance the budget (although this is slowly being repaid over 10 years);
-- $52.7 million “one-time” diversion from the Keystone Recreation, Parks and Conservation Fund in 2006 to balance the budget;
-- $50 million in 2007 and 2008 from the Environmental Stewardship Fund, which supports mine reclamation and watershed restoration, to fund the Hazardous Sites Cleanup Program because there was no agreement on how to fund that program;
-- $50 million in 2007 and 2008 from the Environmental Stewardship Fund to pay debt service on the Growing Greener II bond issue and taking funding away from restoration projects each year for the next 25 years – reflecting a pattern of only environmental programs being required to address their own bond debt service;
-- $15 million from the Recycling Fund in 2008 to balance the budget; and
-- $18.4 million that was just put into budgetary reserve from the Department of Environmental Protection and Department of Conservation and Natural Resources that will further cut their staff.
To this total must be added the proposed cuts in funding for 2009-10--
-- $29.9 million from the Environmental Stewardship Fund to pay debt service on the Growing Greener II bond issue;
-- $25.1 million in the operating budgets for the departments of Environmental Protection and Conservation and Natural Resources; and
-- $22 million reduction in available grants from the Recycling Fund.
The total amount of money cut or diverted from environmental programs would rise to $861 million over the last seven years.
The environmental funding situation in the near future will get even worse because when the Growing Greener II bond issue spending plan was adopted in 2005, Gov. Rendell and the General Assembly mandated an end to this source of funding in the 2010-11 budget year leaving no funding for many important abandoned mine reclamation, watershed cleanup, oil and gas well plugging, agricultural land preservation, recreation and State Park facility projects. PARC is an alliance of conservation, parks, and environmental organizations that work to ensure adequate funding for conservation and restoration projects around the state. PARC was instrumental in the passage of the Growing Greener II legislation and ballot initiative.
In addition to PennFuture and quoted groups, PARC groups include Audubon Pennsylvania, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, the Conservation Fund, GreenSpace Alliance, the Nature Conservancy, PennEnvironment, the Pennsylvania Environmental Council, Sierra Club Pennsylvania Chapter, the Pennsylvania Land Trust Association, the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, the Pennsylvania Parks and Recreation Society, the Trust for Public Land, and local and regional land trusts.
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2/6/2009 |
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