The vote was 14 to 12 to report the bill out of Committee-- Republicans opposing.
The bill was Tabled, which is the usual practice of the House.
Rep. Jack Rader, Jr. (R-Monroe), Minority Chair of the Committee, said-- So looking at the bill itself, under definitions, a substance designated as hazardous by regulation promulgated by the department, that could expand what is hazardous or wasn't that hazardous by quite a bit.
“And a “responsible person,” well, you're never going to get a person saying, "Yeah, that was me. I did it."
“So when you want immediate action and you want somebody responsible, I don't think you're going to get that. You're going to have to go to court for that. So that kind of defeats the purpose of the bill also.
“I don't know anybody who's going to take responsibility immediately for something that could cost millions of dollars.”
“So it's [the authority to deal with spills is] already there under the Hazardous Sites Cleanup Act. Whether we enforce it and do it properly, that's another question, but the ability to do it from DEP is already there.
“And another part of the bill, it's “consistent with the Environmental Rights Amendment,” and that's problematic because it states something about pure water in there.
“Well, you might not have pure water to begin with. So are we going to require different people to actually upgrade what water and environmental concerns we already have and take care of issues that already have been there?
“So I think that's a concern.
“And DEP right here also says Hazardous Sites Cleanup Fund can pay for costs of cleanup and that's really going to greatly expand the costs of cleanup and expand the money we need in the Fund, but there's no mechanism in this bill or any bill to put extra money into our cleanup fund to pay for all these new sites that we're going to have.”
“So I have a concern about that, and DEP's going to have to decide what site would be most important in priorities or what site would get funded, what wouldn't.
“I hate to say this, they hate to take the rights of DEP to decide where the priority is with the limited funds that they have, which they have to do right now.
“And if you pass this, they would have to clean everything up, I think, which would almost be impossible. So for those reasons, I’m against the bill.”
Rep. Danielle Friel Otten (D-Chester) responded to concerns about the bill saying-- “my district is in the intersection of the largest number of pipelines across the state of Pennsylvania. Chester County is the intersection for most of the pipelines that are coming from Northeastern PA, Northern Pennsylvania, Western Pennsylvania, to Marcus Hook [refineries].
“And so I have a lot of experience with pipelines, pipeline failures, pipeline construction through our highly densely populated residential communities.
“In some cases, these pipelines sit 10 to 15 feet from people's homes where their children sleep.
“We have highly volatile natural gas liquids pipelines that are upwards of 20 inches in diameter and multiple pipelines on top of each other within 50 feet of my back door where I have a family, young children, animals, and a community of neighbors, over 500 households, all that are very closely in proximity to me and those pipelines.
“If we don't do something here, we are failing in our role as government and we are continuing the situation of pitting regular citizens up against multi-billion dollar corporations.
“I can't tell you how many constituents of mine I have had to navigate with the Attorney General for damages that have been done to their property just through the Mariner East Pipeline Construction that still five years after that pipeline is in the ground and the grass is grown over, still do not have remediation or restoration to the damages that have been done.
“We've had properties that have been condemned because septic systems have been destroyed.
“We have neighbors who have had wells that have been destroyed, that they have had to put out $60,000 to drill new wells for their homes that are still begging the Attorney General's office to uphold the agreement that was made to make good on their property damages.
“But still, these multi-billion dollar corporations are fighting them and as the chairman pointed out, forcing them to prove a negative.
“They're forcing them to prove conditions that existed well before this ever came to pass.
“And they don't have that information because there was a promise that it would never happen and they had no reason to have to have a baseline piece of information to restore their property to its condition prior to the damages that were done.
“And so we are derelict in our duty as government. This is when government needs to step in.
“This is when we need layers of government to protect the public health and safety and to protect the private property rights of the people who give these pipeline companies the privilege of operating within their property that they own.
“And these companies are being given eminent domain rights to go through residential communities within feet of people's homes where they sleep and live and raise their families through school yards, through senior living communities.
“And they have no responsibilities to protect the public, unless we force them to do that.
“We should not be pitting private citizens against multi-billion dollar corporations just to restore the damages that these companies are creating in their homes and their properties and in their communities and for the public health and safety.”
Click Here to watch a video of the meeting.
Background
House Bill 2178 (Warren-R-Bucks)-- the Pennsylvania Environmental Cleanup and Responsibility Act (ECRA)-- legislation is designed to close critical gaps in state law exposed by last year’s jet fuel pipeline leak in Upper Makefield Township, Bucks County. Read more here.
Nearly one year after the spill contaminated private drinking water wells in Upper Makefield Township, residents are still grappling with uncertainty, delays, and the long-term impacts of contamination.
The incident highlighted how current Pennsylvania statutes are ill-equipped to address active spills and environmental emergencies in residential communities.
ECRA would allow the state to take immediate action when hazardous substances are released, mandate cleanup to residential safety standards, hold polluters financially accountable, and empower the Department of Environmental Protection to step in when responsible parties fail to act.
The Upper Makefield spill is reported to be under investigation by Attorney General Dave Sunday to determine if environmental crimes were committed. Read more here.
Visit DEP’s Upper Makefield Pipeline Spill for more on the cleanup response.
No Insurance Required
Petroleum product, natural gas, hazardous liquid pipelines are not required by federal or state agencies to have or show proof of general liability, environmental liability or catastrophic insurance or produce a financial assurance plan that demonstrates they can pay for damages the operation of their facilities may cause.
For decades, general liability, and many times environmental cleanup insurance, has been a key part of many environmental programs to pay the cost of injuries to people, property and the environment in case something goes very wrong.
But not with pipelines and their related infrastructure. Read more here.
Rep. Greg Vitali (D-Delaware) serves as Majority Chair of the House Environmental & Natural Resource Protection Committee and can be contacted by calling 717-787-7647 or sending email to: gvitali@pahouse.net. Rep. Jack Rader, Jr. (R-Monroe) serves as Minority Chair and can be contacted by calling 717-787-7732 or click here to send an email.
(Map of Energy Transfer/Sunoco jet fuel pipeline spill investigation area. DEP webpage.)
[Posted: April 28, 2026] PA Environment Digest
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