Energy Testimony

Dear Representative,
On behalf of PennEnvironment’s citizen members, I am writing to ask you to help protect Pennsylvania’s environment by opposing Special Session House Bill 2 (SHB 2) unless the “offsets” provision for liquid coal is removed.  As you know, this bill is scheduled for a vote in the Environmental Resources & Energy Committee tomorrow, Tuesday, November 20.  

SHB 2 is intended to promote alternative fuels in Pennsylvania with the laudable goals of helping to reduce air pollution and protect our environment. Specifically, the legislation states, “The purpose of this act is to … Improve air and water quality and reduce production of greenhouse gases and other environmentally harmful emissions in this Commonwealth.”

Unfortunately, in its current form SHB2 also allows for coal-to-liquids or “liquid coal”—a type of transportation fuel—to meet the requirements of this legislation instead of truly clean fuel sources.  Yet recent analysis has shown that liquid coal produces twice as much global warming pollution per gallon as regular transportation fuels.  Put another way, using liquid coal in a hybrid car would create the same amount of global warming pollution as operating a Hummer H3 run on conventional gasoline.  If Pennsylvania is serious about cutting global warming pollution, we cannot afford to be promoting alternative fuels that create more global warming pollution than the status quo.  Pennsylvania already creates more global warming pollution than every state besides Texas and California, and achieving a significant reduction in global warming pollution is the only way to avoid the worst consequences of global warming.

Aside from the environmental impacts, liquid coal is an incredibly expensive technology that has been opposed by a wide range of taxpayer and fiscal watchdog groups, including the Cato Institute and Taxpayers for Common Sense.  

PennEnvironment therefore urges you to oppose SHB 2 unless the bill is amended in committee to at least remove the offsets provision for liquid coal.  While the goal of the bill’s offsets provision is to account for the pollution increase from liquid coal with a pollution decrease in another sector (planting more trees or cutting power plants’ pollution, for instance), it is incredibly difficult to verify that such “offsets” actually equal real pollution reductions overall, and such programs are therefore viewed by the vast majority of the environmental community as an ineffective way of dealing with increases in global warming pollution.  Removing the “offsets” option in SHB 2 would therefore help to remove some of the global warming threat posed by the legislation.

PennEnvironment has been joined by a broad coalition of state and national environmental groups in opposing the liquid coal language within SHB 2, including Sierra Club, Clean Air Council, Clean Water Action, Group Against Smog & Pollution (GASP), Union of Concerned Scientists, National Parks Conservation Association and the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Please do not hesitate to contact me with questions on this issue.  I can be reached by email at nwillcox@pennenvironment.org or by phone at 215-732-5897.

Sincerely,
Nathan Willcox
Energy & Clean Air Advocate
PennEnvironment