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Senate of Pennsylvania
Session of 2019 - 2020 Regular Session

MEMORANDUM

Posted: January 17, 2019 03:24 PM
From: Senator Richard L. Alloway, II
To: All Senate members
Subject: Pennsylvania Clean Water Procurement Program
 
I am re-introducing legislation to create a program for Pennsylvania municipalities and municipal separate storm sewer systems (MS4s) to meet their taxpayer funded Chesapeake Bay nutrient reduction mandates.

Overall, the bill would allow local governments to partner with the private sector to meet clean water standards – that are mandated by the federal government – at a lower cost to taxpayers.

The legislation was introduced as Senate Bill 799 in 2017-2018, and passed the Senate by a 47-2 margin.

In January 2013, the PA Legislative Budget & Finance Committee issued a report that projected a competitively-bid verified nutrient procurement program would reduce overall compliance costs by up to 80 percent. In the process, we can save taxpayers billions, while improving drinkable water within the Chesapeake Bay watershed, which has been threatened through years of poor cleanup efforts.

Pennsylvania’s taxpayers, in spite of having invested billions in municipal and agricultural Chesapeake Bay restoration efforts, face unprecedented costs in meeting Chesapeake Bay total maximum daily load (TMDL) pollution requirements under the existing Department of Environmental Protection sector allocation approach.

Simply put, meeting the 2025 Chesapeake Bay mandate under the existing approach will be the single largest tax increase that the taxpayers of the Susquehanna watershed have seen in their lifetime.

The impact of allowing these crushing costs to continue unabated will have a devastating effect on these communities and significantly impact the long term social and economic health of these communities.

This legislation will replace the existing allocation approach, which is not cost focused, with a competitive-bidding program that focuses on the securing the most cost-effective solution. This will include risk assessment and valuing local quantifiable environmental benefits and their impact on the community.

The program is designed to transfer performance risk from the taxpayer to the successful bidder by requiring that the projects be private-sector funded. Payment for nutrient reductions will be after the Department of Environmental Protection has certified the nutrient reductions. Under the existing approach, taxpayers fund the solution and assume the risk.

This will save taxpayers billions, and finally help Pennsylvania solve its Chesapeake Bay cleanup challenges.

I hope you will join me in dealing with this very important issue. Senate Bill 799 was co-sponsored last session by Senators Bartolotta, Reschenthaler, Stefano and White.

If you have any questions regarding this legislation, please contact Melissa Knepper at 717-772-2929 or mknepper@pasen.gov.