Pennsylvania Legacies Pennsylvania Environmental Council

PEC staff joined partners and neighbors at 2024 Celebrate Trails Day events across the state last weekend. On this episode, we share trailside conversations and sounds from the Three Rivers Heritage Trail and Duck Hollow Trail in Pittsburgh; the Sheepskin Trail in Uniontown; and the Mon River Trail in Morgantown, WV.

As a clean energy technology, hydrogen holds both promise and peril -- especially in terms of local impacts and public attitudes. With DoE-funded regional hydrogen hubs coming to Pennsylvania, how can we ensure community voices are heard and their needs are met? Researchers from the Energy Futures Initiative recently took the public's temperature and found people across the country broadly willing to engage on the subject. On this episode, we explore the social dimension of hydrogen hubs via a panel discussion at last month's gathering of the Southwest Pennsylvania Decarbonization Forum co-hosted by PEC.

As Pennsylvania goes after hundreds of millions of Climate Pollution Reduction Grant dollars, a conversation with the architect of RISE-PA, the Department of Environmental Protection's plan to decarbonize heavy industry and other major sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the Commonwealth. Our guest, DEP's Louie Krak, is part of a special team within the Shapiro Administration tasked with making the most of unprecedented federal funding opportunities.

Climate change threatens the survival of two thirds of all North American bird species. But the massive buildout of power transmission infrastructure needed to support a zero-carbon energy system also poses a threat to birds -- especially in Pennsylvania, which exports more electricity than any other state. How can we scale up the grid while minimizing impacts on our feathered friends? A new report from the National Audubon Society has answers.

On this episode we get to know PEC's new president, Tom Gilbert, who started in January. A native Pennsylvanian, Tom has led successful campaigns for open space preservation and clean energy policy in New Jersey, where he served as co-Executive Director of the New Jersey Conservation Foundation.

Oil and gas producing states have two years to bring their regulations up to newly finalized EPA standards, including stricter inspection and repair requirements, to stop leaks and intentional release of climate-changing methane. Environmental Defense Fund's John Rutecki explains what the new rule will mean for Pennsylvania, the nation's second-largest producer of natural gas.