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House Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
House of Representatives
Session of 2023 - 2024
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | June 24, 2024 09:48 AM |
|---|---|
| From: | Representative Mandy Steele and Rep. Tarik Khan, Rep. Jennifer O'Mara, Rep. Greg Scott, Rep. Emily Kinkead |
| To: | All House members |
| Subject: | Holding Corporate Polluters Accountable |
| Past incidents at the Clairton Coke Works in Allegheny County and the Philadelphia Energy Solutions refinery complex in Philadelphia significantly interfere with the public’s health and safety. These events illustrate the urgency for a comprehensive solution to correct flaws in air monitoring and response plans for industrial sites surrounded by highly concentrated residential areas. According to the Pennsylvania Constitution, residents of our Commonwealth have a right to “clean air, pure water, and to the preservation […] of the environment.” Corporations should be accountable when they pollute, and residents need to be aware when unsafe environmental conditions from corporate disasters are present. Currently, corporate polluters are not required to have a standard warning process to alert the public during an environmental disaster caused by their company. Also, financial penalties for polluters have not been updated in decades, leaving relatively low-level fines for polluters, which serve as an ineffective deterrent for pollution. Our legislation would first require the offending corporation to notify affected communities as soon as possible and within 12 hours of an accident or breakdown that has the potential to impact the public's health. All major facilities would be required to develop and maintain a municipal notification plan to notify the immediate and surrounding communities in the event of an accident causing pollution to the air, soil, water, or other natural resources. Our bill would ensure that an expeditious process to deliver notice of the risk to the affected municipalities occurs, that measures for community members to undertake to mitigate the risks of the air pollution release are effectively communicated, and that yearly updates to the municipal notification plan occur to ensure current contact procedures. Second, our legislation would significantly increase fines for facilities found to exceed established pollution thresholds. Companies in violation should be properly penalized to deter pollution so that toxic public health disasters are no longer part of the routine costs of doing business. Please join us in cosponsoring this important bill to safeguard the public from bad corporate actors and toxic polluters. This bill is the House companion to SB 280. |
Memo Updated: June 24, 2024 09:49 AM