DEP Secretary Krancer Continues to Battle Clean Air Council

• Susan Phillips
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  Susan Phillips tells stories about the consequences of political decisions on people's every day lives. She has worked as a reporter for WHYY since 2004. Susan's coverage of the 2008 Presidential election resulted in a story on the front page of the New York Times. In 2010 she traveled to Haiti to cover the earthquake. That same year she produced an award-winning series on Pennsylvania's natural gas rush called "The Shale Game." She received a 2013 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Journalism Award for her work covering natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania. She has also won several Edward R. Murrow awards for her work with StateImpact. In 2013/14 she spent a year at MIT as a Knight Science Journalism Fellow. She has also been a Metcalf Fellow, an MBL Logan Science Journalism Fellow and reported from Marrakech on the 2016 climate talks as an International Reporting Project Fellow. A graduate of Columbia School of Journalism, she earned her Bachelor's degree in International Relations from George Washington University.

Last month we reported on a battle between the Clean Air Council and the Department of Environmental Protection over air permits. Clean Air Council filed a lawsuit against the DEP challenging the agency’s decision to aggregate two Philadelphia area refineries for the purpose of determining air emission requirements. The CAA says the DEP employs a double standard because the agency does not apply the same standards to oil and gas fields in rural Pennsylvania.
To read more on this issue, click here.
On Wednesday, Secretary Krancer sent a letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson asking the Agency to reject the Clean Air Council’s petition.
Krancer references letters from Leo Gerard, head of the United Steelworkers International, and Rob Wonderling, CEO of the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce. Both Gerard and Wonderling support DEP’s refinery decision based on job-creation and economic development. Krancer says the Clean Air Council is out of touch.

To read Secretary Krancer’s entire letter, see below. 
Clean Air Council director Joe Minott says Krancer spends more time attacking his organization, than addressing the legal merits of the case.
“It’s not a serious response to a serious legal issue,” Minott tells StateImpact. “It’s a whine about Clean Air Council. And frankly we think the secretary misunderstands both the law, and the 6^th Circuit decision.”
The 6th circuit decision on Summit Petroleum v. EPA, ruled that aggregating air polluters for the sake of emission regulation should not be based on interdependence, or a “functional interrelationship.” The 6th circuit decision is not legally binding in Pennsylvania, but it could influence a judge’s decision. But when it comes to the refineries, the Summit Petroleum decision would seem to side not with the DEP’s position on aggregation, but against aggregation of the refineries. For a good explanation of the Summit Petroleum decision, click here. To read Secretary Krancer’s entire letter to the EPA, see below.

 

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