2018 members of Pennsylvania Climate Change Advisory Committee

As Pennsylvania’s Climate Change Advisory Committee reviews the state’s most recent Climate Action Plan, it’s worth noting that several members of the board have close ties to the fossil fuel industry.

Two members of the 20-member committee are listed as private citizens. They are Patrick Henderson, currently the head of Government Relations for the Marcellus Shale Coalition who served previously as Governor Tom Corbett’s Deputy Chief of Staff and Energy Advisor and Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee and James Felmlee, Past President of the Pennsylvania State Association of Boroughs who was appointed to the Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission by Corbett.

One of the leaders of the Board is Dennis Davin, Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development. When Governor Tom Wolf announced that the controversial Royal Dutch Shell ethane cracker plant would be built, he said, “Since first taking office, I have worked in close collaboration with my Secretary of Community and Economic Development Dennis Davin, the Pittsburgh Regional Alliance, local officials in Western Pennsylvania, and Royal Dutch Shell to make the proposed plant a reality.”

Other members include:

CONSOL Energy, Pittsburgh-based coal and natural gas company

The Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission, whose website discusses the Pennsylvania Partnership to Promote Natural Gas Vehicles (P3NGV), a “US Department of Energy funded initiative managed by DVRPC to provide objective information to fleet managers in southeastern Pennsylvania on the benefits of using CNG as a fuel”.

Representative Marty Causer (R-McKean), who sponsored HB 2154, the bill that received a lot of attention this year because it aimed to relax the rules for conventional drillers by increasing the amount of brine that could be used on roadways before having to report it to regulators, relaxing standards to prevent water contamination, and allowing wells leaking methane to remain uncapped.

Absent from the committee are the voices of communities directly impacted by shale gas development and the grassroots organizations that have formed to fight for environmental justice and climate action. The composition of the committee is reminiscent of that of Governor Tom Wolf’s Pipeline Infrastructure Task Force.

Scott Cannon, a member of an anti-fracking organization called the Gas Drilling Awareness Coalition, was invited to join one of the Task Force’s working completing the application process. When the Wolf administration became aware of his affiliation, Yesenia Bane, Wolf’s Deputy Chief of Staff, initiated the process of disinviting Cannon. Bane is currently the subject of an ethics investigation into her dealings, in her official capacity, with clients of her husband’s, a gas industry lobbyist at the time.

The Climate Action Plan is as weak on climate action as the committee responsible for reviewing it is strong on ties to the fossil fuel industry. It’s not surprising that the plan does not include a single mention of the greenhouse gas ethane nor the petrochemical boom it is driving, nor any provisions that indicate any real effort to transition away from methane.