A Win for Water Protection: Pro-corporate chemical spill regulation withdrawn

April 8, 2026, Harrisburg, PA — Approximately one year ago, the Pennsylvania Environmental Quality Board (EQB) announced it was undertaking a rulemaking to weaken our state Clean Streams Law’s reporting requirements when an entity spills a potentially dangerous chemical or substance into our waters. But in a huge win for water quality in the Commonwealth, the EQB announced today that it was withdrawing the rulemaking. The action comes after EQB received more than 1,110 public comments and testimony from individuals and groups.

The rulemaking would have weakened spill reporting requirements by allowing an entity responsible for an unauthorized spill or discharge to decide if and when to report the spill to the Department of Environmental Protection. This would have taken away Pennsylvanians’ right to know what is in their water and threatened the environment, public health, and downstream communities and industries.

Rolling back spill reporting requirements had been a multi-year effort, pushed by corporate interests. PennFuture stood in opposition to these attempts to weaken the spill reporting requirements each and every time: the attempts when this rollback of the Clean Streams Act was introduced as a bill, and again when it resurfaced as a rulemaking. PennFuture’s members stood with us: over 800 members from across the state spoke up in opposition to the rulemaking, letting our policymakers know how important clean water is to them.

Patrick McDonnell, President and CEO of PennFuture:

“Today’s action shows that when we speak out loud and clear in favor of strong environmental regulations, we win!

For years, an effort led predominately by one company has tried to rollback critical regulations that protect our water from spills. This effort failed at the legislative level. And now it has failed to change the regulations. I am grateful for the work that PennFuture’s staff has done over the years to fight back against this and for the thousands of Pennsylvanians who stood up time and again against this change.

I want to thank the Environmental Quality Board and the Department of Environmental Protection for hearing Pennsylvanians’ concerns, listening to reason, rejecting this dangerous undertaking, and standing strong in protecting our over 86,000 miles of streams and lakes from unreported pollution spills.”