PLEASE EMAIL AND FAX MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE ENVIRONMENTAL RESOURCES AND ENERGY COMMITTEE ON MONDAY AND ASK THEM TO ADDRESS QUESTIONS AND CONCERNS ABOUT THE GREEN PA PLAN. Sample letter, bullet points, and committee list are below. If your legislator is not on the committee, send your fax and email to Rep. Adolph, the majority chair of the committee and Rep. Bud George, minority chair.

On Tuesday, Feb. 8, the House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee will be voting on the Green PA plan, now introduced as House Bill 2 and House Bill 3. While this proposal has served to move the need
for substantial new funding for environmental conservation and restoration
work ahead, especially in its extension of the tipping fee to 2033, the
plan as now written raises some serious concerns:

* Green PA diverts $2.50 of the $4.25 now going to the Environmental
Stewardship Fund for Growing Greener to paying off the $800 million bond
and dedicates $1.25 to the Hazardous Sites Clean Up Fund, and $.50 to
Farmland Preservation.

* For 7 years, money from the $800 million bond would flow to DEP and DCNR as follows - 31.3% to DCNR, 43.7% to DEP, and 25% to PennVest. DEP must spend $15 million a year of its share on AMD remediation, DCNR must spend $15 million a year of its share for land preservation.

* All projects funded from the $800 million bond must be eligible for
tax-exempt bond funding which raises questions about whether or not the
funding could be used for non-capital projects such as riparian buffer
work and other watershed restoration, operation and maintanance of AMD
treatment systems, any salaries, and the CREP match.

*After 7 years, the only programs that receive funding under the Green PA
plan are farmland preservation and the Hazardous Sites Clean Up Fund.

Pasted below are bullet points for writing your own letter from the
perspective of your local needs, a sample letter and the list of the members
of the Environmental Resources and Energy Committee and their email
addresses and fax numbers.

YOU MUST ACT ON MONDAY - THE COMMITTEE WILL VOTE ON THIS ON TUESDAY!

Once again, it is important to contact your legislators today to reaffirm
your support of an environmental program that

• Protects watershed health and provides continued funding for
  watershed restoration projects,
• Provides for operations and maintenance funding for acid mine
  drainage,
• Protects open space
• Advances farmland protection,
• Maintains the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program, and other
  issues long championed by PARC
• Uses new funds from a modestly increased tipping fee and extends
  the current tipping fee to 2033
• Includes elements of proposals from both parties, Growing Greener
  II and Green PA

Sample Letter

Feb 4, 2004

Hon. Bill Adolph, Jr., Chairman
Pa House Environmental Resources Committee
110 ROB, Main Capitol Building
Harrisburg, PA 17120

Re: Green PA

Dear Chairman Adolph,

The Green PA proposal is a creative and substantive step forward in the
discussion about how to fund Pennsylvania's long-underfunded environmental problems, and for that you, the Environmental Resources Committee, the Appropriations Committee and committee staff are to be applauded. Lifting the sunset on the tipping fee is an outstanding proposal.

Pennsylvania's environmental conservation and restoration needs are
tremendous. We are losing farmland and other open space at the rate of 300
acres per day, 11,000 contaminated properties await clean up and reuse,
and thousands of miles of streams are degraded by acid mine pollution.
Green PA is a well-crafted effort to address these issues but is in no way
sufficient.

The challenges of watershed health, operations and maintenance funding for
acid mine drainage, open space protection, farmland protection, the
Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program, and others are well-documented and universally recognized (although the relative significance of needs varies from locality to locality). It is with this bi-partisan
understanding that a newly invigorated Growing Greener or Green PA program should emerge.

It is our concern that, without new funding beyond that created by the
extension of the existing tipping fees, watershed restoration projects,
operations and maintenance of restoration projects already in the ground,
including acid mine discharge treatment systems, and matching funding for
the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program will simply not be
sufficient or will be ineligible for funding obtained from tax-exempt
bonds. We are also concerned over the fate of these programs after 2012
when funding will end for these kinds of programs.

Moreover, we are deeply concerned about the idea that has been discussed
to allow counties to play an administrative or grant selection role.
Historically state environmental grants have been state-wide and,
therefore, completely competitive; they have also elicited maximum
matching grants and donations of time and equipment. Already counties
have significant influence on grant proposals, especially so with land
protection grants. Under the current grants program, any county already
has recourse if it does not want a specific grant to be spent in its
domain. Granting counties any further oversight over state grant
programs, or creating block grants of state funds to unprepared county
governments would be fatal flaws in any environmental funding proposal. We
are pleased to see this is not an element of the GreenPA plan and we would
oppose any legislation that set up such a distribution to the counties.

In sum, I want to thank you again for all of your hard work on behalf of
environmental quality, and for your openness and accessibility. I would
very much appreciate an opportunity to discuss these issues further with
you at your convenience.

Sincerely,

If your legislator is not on the Environmental Resources and Energy
Committee, send your fax and email to Rep. Adolph who is chair of the
committee and Rep. George who is minority chair.

If you do not know who your legislator is, go to
http://www.house.state.pa.us/index.cfm and use the box in the upper right
hand corner. Put your county in the box and hit "go". If this does not
line up in your email message - see the contact information below.

House Environmental Resources & Energy Committee
name Email Fax (all 717 area code)
Adolph, Jr., William F (R H-165) wadolph@pahousegop.com 705-2095
Armstrong, Gibson C. (R H-100) garmstro@pahousegop.com 705-1947
Butkovitz, Alan (D H-174) abutkovi@pahouse.net 783-1579
Causer, Martin T. (R H- 67) mcauser@pahousegop.com 705-7021
Crahalla, Jacqueline R. (R H-150) jcrahall@pahousegop.com 783-3793
Creighton, Thomas (R H- 37) tcreight@pahousegop.com 772-9869
Freeman, Robert (D H-136) rfreeman@pahouse.net 783-2152
George, Camille (D H- 74) cgeorge@pahouse.net 783-8236
Gergely, Marc J. (D H- 35) mgergely@pahouse.net 705-7000
Harper, Kate M. (R H- 61) kharper@pahousegop.com 787-2022
Hershey, Arthur D. (R H- 13) ahershey@pahousegop.com 705-1868
Hutchinson, Scott E. (R H- 64) shutchin@pahousegop.com 787-0860
Leach, Daylin (D H-149) dleach@pahouse.net 787-0861
Levdansky, David K. (D H- 39) dlevdans@pahouse.net 783-1193
Mann, Jennifer (D H-132)jmann@pahouse.net 705-2087
McGeehan, Michael Patrick (D H-173) mmcgeeha@pahouse.net 787-4923
McIlhinney, Jr., Chuck (R H-143) cmcilhin@pahousegop.com 783-8332
Miller, Ronald (R H- 93) rmiller@pahousegop.com 772-9869
Pyle, Jeff (R H- 60) jpyle@pahousegop.com 705-1921
Rapp, Kathy (R H- 65) klrapp@pahousegop.com 787-5854
Reed, Dave (R H- 62) dreed@pahousegop.com 705-1947
Ross, Chris (R H-158) cross@pahousegop.com 783-1589
Rubley, Carole A. (R H-157) crubley@pahousegop.com 772-1416
Stevenson, Dick (R H- 8) rstevens@pahousegop.com 705-1949
Surra, Dan A. (D H- 75) dsurra@pahouse.net 772-9999
Thomas, W. Curtis (D H-181) cthomas@pahouse.net 787-7297
Vitali, Greg (D H-166) gvitali@pahouse.net 705-2089
Wansacz, Jim (D H-114) jwansacz@pahouse.net 772-2284

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