With the Democrats retaining a 1-seat majority in the Pennsylvania House and the Senate still in Republican control, we wanted to get a perspective on these results and how they might influence environmental policy going forward.
David Hess, former Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection in the early 2000s and editor of the PA Environment Digest Blog, spoke with The Allegheny Front’s Kara Holsopple.
(They spoke on Thursday morning before all of the Pennsylvania state House races had been called.)
Kara Holsopple: So Democrats did not gain the 3 or 4 seats in the state Senate that they hoped would help them gain control. How will some of the environmental and climate goals that they want Pennsylvania to pursue fair now, like joining the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and boosting the alternative energy portfolio standard to include more renewable energy?
David Hess: Well, I mean, the political picture is still incomplete because we don’t know who controls the House. And that will be a big piece. So I’m not sure we can make a judgment about that right now. I think we know two things right now.
One, the environmental problems we had the day before the elections are still with us. You know, a couple of days after the election.
The second thing we know is that the people who are concerned about them and are affected by those environmental problems are still going to push for solutions, whether it is more protections from the impacts of shale gas development on families and communities, whether it’s to stop the continued abandonment of conventional oil and gas wells by oil and gas well owners, whether it’s air pollution in Pittsburgh, whether it’s the drought situation – where we’re now facing all those problems are still here regardless of what the election results are or have been.
But the election results could change what the solutions are, right?
I think, you know, the way the landscape looks now, people who have been affected by shale gas development [and] a lot of other environmental issues had a real challenge getting the attention of policymakers and politicians for their issues, especially locally.
I think those challenges will continue regardless of who is in political power. It looks like we’re headed for a divided legislature again, either divided House and Senate or either divided by a Democratic governor and a Republican legislature. We just don’t know yet.
But anyway, I think we’re still headed for a divided political system. And that will really mean that those people who are affected really need to really press their case because these issues are real. They are not fake. They are very real to many, many people.
Republican Dave Sunday won the Pennsylvania attorney general race. How important is the AG to environmental issues, and what do you see happening on environmental issues with a Republican in the office?
The attorney general is really the one that can bring criminal charges to enforce environmental laws in the state, and that office is very critical to environmental enforcement.
We saw a very active Josh Shapiro as attorney general, taking criminal charges against the pipeline companies and other shale gas operations and being very successful at getting prosecutions and convictions on those issues. We’ll have to see what the Republican attorney general does. I’m sure he’s committed to enforcing the law. We’ll see how aggressive he is in doing that.
The night before the election in Cecil Township, Washington County, the Board of Supervisors there adopted an ordinance that establishes stricter setbacks from shale gas well pads than state law: 2,500 feet from homes and 5000 feet from schools and hospitals.
Fracking was an issue that some singled out in the election this year, and a recent poll showed that more than half of Pennsylvania voters supported fracking. What’s the significance of this ordinance?
I think it’s yet another example where communities and their local elected officials have had to take matters into their own hands to protect their residents from the negative impacts of shale gas operations.
I’m sure we’re going to see more activity in increasing setback distances and regulating drilling because it is a land use. And communities and municipalities can regulate drilling as a land use. I think Cecil is showing the way because they’re increasing the setback distances, and Cecil Township is following the latest science.
I think everybody can agree 500 feet is just totally inadequate, and that’s the current distance. I think the other thing is the industry is going to do everything they can to legally challenge that for the same reason.
It is an example others can use, and [the industry is] going to continue the false narrative that increasing setback distances by any amount, as they have said, amounts to a ban on shale gas drilling, which is ridiculous.
You worked in a Republican administration in Pennsylvania. What can we learn from our history about environmental regulation under Republican leadership or with a lot of Republican control?
Well, Governor [Tom] Ridge (1995-2001) and Governor [Mark] Schweiker (2001-2003), I think, had a very progressive view of environmental protection. They wanted the permitting system to work and work efficiently.
On the enforcement side, they wanted the laws enforced evenly across the board because you don’t want to play favorites. And we had innovations like putting enforcement and inspection records online for everyone to see what inspections resulted in and where violations occur. We were the first agency in the nation to do that.
So I think there’s that opportunity for leadership, whether you’re a Republican or Democrat. The key is, do you want to solve problems, or do you just want to limp along the same old way that you did before and let ordinary people who are trying to make a living out there suffer because you’re not providing the leadership that you need to provide? And I think that’s the question today.
I feel like there’s an elephant in the room, which is the huge amount of influence and money that the oil and gas industry has to lobby about these issues in state government. How can there ever be a fair fight between, you know, people who are advocating for safety against that kind of industry?
There’s no doubt the industry is very, very good at pressing the buttons of politicians, whether it’s by campaign contributions or constantly taking them out to dinner or meeting with them constantly about their issues.
But, you know, I worked for two state senators, Senator Mike Fisher from Allegheny County and Washington County at that time and Senator Chip Brightbill from Lebanon County.
You would be surprised, in some ways, how even in a group of 10 or 15 people coming in with a well-thought-out position on an issue and offering a solution to those issues – how a small group of people can get the attention of state officials like that. And that’s their job. I mean, that is their job to hear their constituents and see if they can solve the problem.
The problem we have today is that the industry has a tight grip on a lot of these politicians, and they and the politicians won’t even meet with these people. But we’ve had examples all over the state, you know, whether it’s Cecil Township who took matters into their own hands this week and adopted an ordinance with much bigger setbacks, whether it’s Fayette County, a very conservative county, and the state House member there who advocated for banning injection wells, oil and gas waste injection wells in their county, in their community because of the concern that the local people expressed. The state House member introduced legislation to ban injection wells for oil and gas wastewater statewide.
In a way, it’s really the local folks who go to their own politicians and say, look, ‘we’ve got real problems here, and somebody has got to solve these problems,’ and they’ve got to be tenacious, as tenacious as the industry is, and it can and does work. I’ve seen it.
David Hess is the editor of the PA Environment Digest Blog and former Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.
Read more from our partners, The Allegheny Front.
