Updated December 18, 2024
Despite seismic changes coming federally, when state legislators return in January for the start of the two-year session, much will be the same in the Commonwealth. Republicans remain in control of the Senate and Democrats hold the slimmest of majorities in the House of Representatives.
Pennsylvania’s clean water efforts have been gaining significant momentum. Ensuring that momentum continues to accelerate and grow will be of utmost importance. With the Chesapeake Clean Water Blueprint deadline of the end of 2025 looming, this includes creating a new vision for Bay recovery efforts. This effort, referred to as Beyond 2025, requires leadership, commitment, and investment from Pennsylvania, other Bay states, and the federal government. It represents a unique opportunity to take the lessons learned from the Blueprint, focus on building a resilient watershed, and, importantly, centering efforts around people—their local environment, communities, and economy.
We urge incoming legislators and Governor Shapiro to take clean water efforts to the next-level in the 2025-26 session. This means:
- supporting farmers’ efforts to achieve resilient, productive soils and clean streams;
- safeguarding communities from the ravages of a changing climate;
- wnsuring Pennsylvania’s resource agencies have the people, technologies, and tools to meet the environmental challenges and opportunities of today and tomorrow; and
- standing up against efforts to endanger public health and the environment.
As Governor Shapiro stated in July, 2024, “We are seeing real results and improvement in the Chesapeake Bay. We’re not just talking about fixing the Bay anymore, we are fixing the Bay, and we are making sure Pennsylvania does its fair share.”
Sustained Funding for State-Based Conservation Program for Farmers
Pennsylvania's 2022-23 state budget invested $220 million of unallocated federal American Rescue Plan funding, into the Clean Streams Fund (CSF). The CSF invests in programs that address the top three sources of stream impairment in the state. Seventy percent ($154 million) was dedicated towards establishing a statewide agricultural conservation cost-share program, known as the Agricultural Conservation Assistance Program (ACAP). The program helps the Commonwealth's more than 50,000 family farmers design and implement conservation practices, like stream fencing to help keep livestock out of streams, forested stream buffers and cover crops, and other practices. In Pennsylvania’s 2024-25 state budget another $50 million was dedicated to the Clean Streams Funds, with almost $35 million og which is allocated to ACAP. This investment is now set to recur annually to help strengthen these programs and allow them to thrive.
CBF worked alongside the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau, as well as Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences, and others to draft legislation to establish ACAP, which was later incorporated into CSF. This program provides county conservation districts additional resources to help farmers design and defer the costs of implementing conservation practices. Levels of support are based on factors such as the size of the farming community and number of agriculturally impaired streams in each county.
The CSF will also invest in reducing the impacts of polluted runoff from urban areas, cleaning up acid mine drainage, planting trees alongside streams and streets, and helping municipalities reduce polluted stormwater runoff.
Accelerating efforts to help farmers protect herd health while restoring streams through streamside fencing is also on our radar. Programs like ACAP will help, but other tools like legislation empowering local governments to assist may be necessary to continue the momentum and get us closer to cleaner rivers and streams in the Commonwealth.
CBF looks forward to working with legislators to maintain this monumental level of commitment to conservation and allow the Commonwealth to stay on track toward meeting its clean water commitments.
Advocating for Sufficient Resources in the State Budget
The state budget represents the priorities of the Commonwealth. For well over a decade, conservation program monies have been diverted and key environmental regulation and conservation and agricultural agencies have lost funding and staff. Routinely, there were numerous legislative efforts to divert resources and underfund conservation and protection agencies via a special state budget process. Some fail but many succeed. Further, in the amended Pennsylvania Phase 3 Watershed Implementation Plan (WIP), it was projected that an additional 100 new resource agency staff would be needed in order to implement the plan.
With the passage of the 2024-25 state budget, the three resource agencies of the Department of Environmental Protection, Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, and Department of Agriculture received increases in the budgets, but are still not at the levels they were once were or needed to fully implement the amended Phase 3 WIP.
In addition, the state budget allocated $10 million towards a new Agriculture Innovation Grant Program to help support agricultural innovation to ensure resiliency, environmental stewardship and vitality of farms and agribusinesses.
CBF will be working to ensure the 2025-26 state budget maintains investments in agriculture and clean water programs as well as increase the resource agencies budgets.
Opposing Legislation that Would Degrade Public Health and the Environment
CBF will continue to fight legislation that threatens to negatively impact Pennsylvania’s environment and public health, like those from previous sessions that sought to limit the Department of Environmental Protection’s abilities, thwart efforts to reduce the impacts of climate change, allow polluters to “self-regulate” chemical spills and discharges, and undermine the ability of state environmental agencies to protect the health, well-being, and quality of life the citizens of Pennsylvania and their environment.
