Commonwealth agencies are generally considered the experts in their field and are tasked with developing and promulgating regulations that give our enforcement community clarity about how the laws in Pennsylvania will be applied. Unfortunately, current provisions allow a path for regulations through the Department of Environmental Protection and the Environmental Quality Board to be initiated by any organization with any agenda through a petition process.

This process, in recent years, has been exploited by overzealous environmental organizations that are one-dimensionally opposed to any source of energy that is not renewable. This has spawned damaging policy, resulting in the loss of industry, businesses, jobs, opportunities, and revenue potential for Pennsylvania.

While the Environmental Quality Board does have the ultimate say as far as what regulations finally get promulgated, the mere fact that these regulatory petitions have been submitted is causing harm in Pennsylvania. First, DEP must expend significant amounts of staff time and financial resources to evaluate these petitions. Particularly at a time when our Commonwealth's finances are in distress, these are resources that DEP can and should be using for its core functions of environmental permitting and inspections.

Additionally, businesses examine the regulatory environment in a state when making decisions about where to locate and make future investments. They are much less likely to locate in a state where these burdensome regulatory petitions are still pending, whether or not they will ever actually be enacted, when they can choose another state where this regulatory threat does not even exist.

My legislation would make the simple change of eliminating the ability of these hostile-to-business groups to exploit this process, leaving the regulatory process to the Department and the Environmental Quality Board. Please join me in sponsoring this important legislation to allow Pennsylvania to effectively manage our resources.