Lehigh Times

Gov. Tom Wolf recently spoke out against the Pennsylvania House Republicans for writing a letter of disapproval for updating the volatile organic compound (VOC) regulation for conventional oil and gas wells, which is required under the Clean Air Act.

According to a press release by Wolf’s office, delays risk losing the state almost $1 billion in federal transportation funds. 

“It’s simply a disgrace that House Republicans are jeopardizing road and bridge repairs by holding up the administration’s efforts to make federally required updates,” Wolf said. “They hastily held a committee meeting this week without advance notice or transparency for the sole purpose of thwarting this regulation, which will jeopardize nearly a billion dollars in federal funding.”

Wolf said that on November 14 the House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee held a meeting unannounced to send the letter to the Independent Regulatory Review Commission about the regulation. That set in motion a 14-day waiting period following a meeting of the IRRC that was scheduled for November 17. This puts the waiting period after the General Assembly adjourned, making it so the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) cannot finalize the regulation before the December 16 trigger date.

“As a result of the House Republicans’ actions, state and local governments across the commonwealth will lose the authorization to spend hundreds of millions of dollars of federal transportation funding on affected projects,” Wolf said. “Because these regulations are required under the Clean Air Act, failure to submit them in final form to U.S. EPA by December 16, 2022, will result in EPA imposing non-discretionary sanctions, and the federal government would thus withhold nearly $1 billion of transportation funding – funding that cannot be recuperated. 

Wolf said that sanctions can hold up projects like highway expansion, road construction, highway and bridge restoration and maintenance. Roads and bridges could be closed or weight limited as well. This could lead to detrimental aspects like longer ambulance response times and longer commutes, as well as federal gasoline tax dollars going to states aside from Pennsylvania.

“This regulation is not controversial,” Wolf said. “It is a federally mandated, technology-based standard. There is no good reason to block the rulemaking but there are extreme consequences for doing so. We have been sounding the alarm for months about the real consequences of these actions and yet they insisted on disapproving the state’s VOC rule. My administration is reviewing all options to prevent the sanctions from being implemented.”