Good morning Supporter,

We are writing today to ask you to contact your state representative and ask them to vote against a dangerous new bill in the General Assembly that seeks to gut pieces of Pennsylvania’s Clean Streams Law, which was enacted in 1937 to protect our abundant water resources.

Specifically, House Bill 1842 fundamentally alters current rules and regulations by handing over authority to polluters to decide if they need to report spills, discharges or releases of substances into the Commonwealth’s waterways. This is a separate, but related, effort from the one we emailed you about last week concerning the Department of Environmental Protection’s public comment period for draft technical guidance on spill reporting.

Simply put, HB 1842 allows polluters to pollute more without notifying anyone or without consequence and egregiously takes away our rights to know when a spill or discharge is impacting public health and local businesses. It jettisons spill reporting requirements from the experts at the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission (PFBC) and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), leaving our waters unprotected from serious pollution events and communities, families, and businesses uninformed of such risks.

This is unacceptable to those of us who seek to hold polluters accountable for their actions. The rules and regulations that protect our precious waterways must be strengthened and strictly enforced, not weakened and put in the hands of corporate polluters. 

HB 1842 is simply NOT in the best interest of Pennsylvanians, either today or in the future. It erodes water protections and gives the responsibility of reporting spills to those who caused the spill. HB 1842 only benefits polluters. 

Please contact your state representative today and ask them to vote NO on HB 1842. Thank you.