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State Senate Probes DEP Budget, Climate Change Recommendations, Energy Plans
Despite a $61 million budget cut from last fiscal year to the current budget, Department of Environmental Protection Secretary John Hanger said the state “is meeting our oversight responsibilities” regarding environmental health risks.
Hanger noted the state budget for his department was $157 million, but that it also received $390 million from the federal government, a federal funding level that “is unusually high because of the federal stimulus program.” Hanger said after the hearing that this year’s stimulus-increased funding is increased by about $200 million a year in the past. Fees from several sources, including recycling and hazardous sites fees add another $289 million.
About two-thirds of the $61 million in budget cuts came from programs not directly related to health and environmental oversight, such as a $15 million program to help consumers reduce energy usage and bills, Hanger said.
While there is still much work to be done in finalizing the Department’s budget, two major environmental proposals also came under fire during the hearing – House Bill 80 and the state’s Climate Change Advisory Committee recommendations.
Sen. Mary Jo White (R-Venango) questioned Governor Rendell and Secretary Hanger’s commitment to House Bill 80, a measure that would mandate the use of higher amounts of alternative energy, and would update and expand the state's 2004 Alternative Energy Portfolio Standard” law.
Hanger maintained that HB 80 and AEPS is “is a very important law” – one that has helped push Pennsylvania forward as a national leader in the energy sector. But, Senators continued to ask why both the PUC and General Services testified that alternative energy was more costly then traditional sources of energy. Hanger said many technologies and sources of alternative energy contribute to the portfolio standards, and that increasing the overall supply of energy “has an effect on wholesale electricity prices.”
White said House Bill 80 proposed increasing the use of solar power by 600 percent, which would further increase costs on customers. Hanger said the “price of solar power is falling rapidly. We have seen declines in solar prices.”
White also sought to clarify Rendell’s comment that the state Global Warming Commission “was unanimous or nearly unanimous” on 39 of its 52 recommendations. Rendell has cited that degree of “unanimity” as grounds for the Legislature to adopt at least those 39 recommendations of the commission, to which Hanger replied that 26 of the 52 were unanimously adopted. The rest had only one, two or three negative voters cast by the 21 commissioners.
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