In early March, strong citizen action from across our state stopped Pennsylvania House Bill 1576, which was driven by natural gas, coal, and oil interests.
HB1576 would have undermined the ability of Pennsylvania's wildlife management agencies to protect threatened and endangered species, and our best native trout streams.
PennFuture helped lead a diverse coalition of environmental, conservation, hunting, angling and recreation organizations opposed to HB 1576. This broad coalition generated thousands of e-mails, phone calls, letters, office visits and letters to the editor across the Commonwealth.
Support for this bad bill greatly eroded in both the House Republican and House Democratic Caucuses as members heard from their constituents and grasped the fact that HB 1576 was an attack on science-driven wildlife management and essentially a solution in search of a problem.
Now these industries are launching another attack -- essentially re-packaging the same bad ideas in a different bill.
The same industries who couldn't take no for an answer have launched the 'Son of House Bill 1576' proposal that would similarly give political appointees the ability to second guess and veto decisions to list wildlife species as threatened or endangered, or to designate wild trout streams.
This proposal has yet to be formally introduced -- but it could be voted on by the House as early as the week of April 28.
Please TAKE ACTION and urge your House member to oppose the 'Son of House Bill 1576' that would give the oil, gas, and coal industries even wider latitude to destroy habitats and wildlife.
We stopped this bill once, and we can stop it again -- with your help.
We need to tell Harrisburg and the fossil fuel industry that enough is enough.
Andrew Sharp is PennFuture's Director of Outreach and is based in our Philadelphia office. He tweets @RexBainbridge.
