After months of debate and negotiations, Gov. Josh Shapiro has signed legislation that will push Pennsylvania to the front line in the effort to slow global warming by capturing climate-altering emissions from power plants and injecting that carbon deep underground. But armed with reports that the fossil fuel industry is vastly overstating the technology’s potential while downplaying its risks, environmentalists are urging the state’s divided Legislature to repeal the legislation.
“Declaring a nonexistent technology to be in the public interest defies logic, yet that is what SB 831 does,” wrote the grassroots Better Path Coalition of the bill in a July 16 letter to Shapiro, co-signed by the leaders of 30 organizations plus 18 individuals. “The bill strips Pennsylvania landowners of their subsurface property rights, shifts liability to the state, and exposes everyone to a new and very dangerous generation of fossil fuel infrastructure.”
