Hi folks,
If you haven't seen the urgent emails from PennFuture or other environmental organizations, let me straightforward: the current PA budget plan is devastating to Pennsylvania’s environment. Specifically it:
1. Forces open state forests for drilling
2. Fails to put a tax on natural gas extraction
3. Repeals the Oil and Gas lease fund which has been a source of environmental funding for 50 years
4. Slashes the DEP budget by 25%

It also unfairly taxes arts and culture institutions’ tickets and small non-profits that rely on bingo and other games of chance for funding. WE NEED TO FIX THIS BUDGET.

First, if you haven’t taken action- please call or email your state legislator now.

Secondly, if you or anyone you know is willing to phonebank at any time this week, please shoot me an email at knapp at pennfuture dot org.

Thanks!

Posting our action alert on natural gas drilling in reaction to the Governor's suggestion that it is off the table during budget negotiations. Please contact him and state legislators!

Multi-billion dollar energy companies have spent $1 million in lobbying money in Pennsylvania this year to try to stop legislators from enacting a severance tax on natural gas extraction. Their money appears to be working, as the state budget negotiations are going forward without a severance tax.

These companies stand to make billions off of our natural resources, and yet Pennsylvania remains the only state with large operations that does not charge a severance tax. These fees can help to cover costs for damaged roads and bridges, contaminated drinking water and other environmental regulations. Instead, the legislature would foist those costs onto Pennsylvania taxpayers rather than force industry to clean up their own mess.

Hi folks,
I thought you all might be interested in the work PennFuture is doing around SLAPP suits. We'll be filing a friend of the court brief, and are looking for other organizations that might want to sign on with us (and get free legal representation) to help fight against them. Here's some of the FAQs about SLAPP:

SLAPP stands for strategic lawsuit against public participation. SLAPP suits, which are filed under any number of legal theories – such as libel and slander – are intended to sidetrack or stop citizen lobbying and public participation aimed at encouraging favorable government action, forcing citizens to defend themselves in court instead.

SLAPPs can be effective, even if the underlying legal theories have no merit. SLAPPs can be very expensive to defend, so SLAPP defendants often agree to abandon their public participation efforts in exchange for settlement of the lawsuit.

Q. Shouldn’t our government officials do something to protect us from SLAPPs?

Last week's posting about the reappointment of the Streets Commissioner led to a lot of questions about recycling in Philly. I'm an absolute waste geek, and thought I'd share some info with all of you. I'd also be open to using this thread as a Q&A on recycling issues in general since there's so much to cover, I know I won't get to it all. I'll start off with some of the most frequently asked questions I get:

Where does my recycling go?
Recycling collected in Philly goes to Blue Mountain Recycling,which is located on Grays Ferry in South Philly. Blue Mountain is a state-of-the-art facility and is able to sort single stream recycling- meaning that recyclables can be put out in one bin and separated at the facility.

How well does Philly do in recycling?