Media Contact:
Contact: Justin Wasser, jwasser@earthworks.org, 202.753.7016
Background: Yesterday, Tuesday, April 8, 2025, the Pennsylvania Environmental Quality Board (EQB) voted 16-3 to table a petition requiring safe setback distances between oil & gas operations and homes, schools, daycares and hospitals after the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) recommended that further study be done by the Department to consider a rulemaking on the matter. Lawyers representing the organizations that filed the petition, which DEP described as legally “sophisticated,” cited 42 peer-reviewed studies that demonstrate dangerous impacts to health and safety associated with living within current setback distances in Pennsylvania. The Environmental Quality Board primarily consists of Shapiro administration appointees, including the Secretary of Health, who voted to table the petition indefinitely.
Statement by Earthworks Pennsylvania Policy and Field Advocate Melissa Ostroff:
“Yesterday’s decision ignores a mountain of peer-reviewed research showing that fracking harms the health of residents, especially children who live and go to school near wells. It also ignores DEP’s own recommendation to move forward with study on the petition.
“Hiding behind the need for ‘more time’ to listen to the oil and gas industry in order to delay public health protections for families is shameful. Residents living with fracking proposed in their backyards don’t have time to wait. And our coalition will continue to fight for their right to breathe clean air.”
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