100 signatures reached
To: Allegheny County Council Leadership
VOTE YES ON OPERATING PERMIT FEE INCREASES. IT WILL COST OUR TAXPAYERS NOTHING
The Allegheny County Health Department (ACHD) has recommended increased fees to cover their staff and program costs for administering the required operating permit program for polluting industries.
The Clean Air Act requires ACHD to charge fees that are sufficient to cover the cost of administering the program.
The fee increase transfers the burden of covering these costs to the industries that profit from harming our health. It will cost taxpayers nothing.
Please sign the petition asking that County Leadership Vote YES on operating permit fee increase.
Why is this important?
As Allegheny County Council prepares to vote on the fee increase, U.S. Steel lobbyists are claiming that it is unfair for the company to have to pay $55,000 per year for each of its three major polluting facilities in Mon Valley.
However, U.S. Steel earned $2.14 Billion in 2023, spent $1.65 Million on lobbying this year, and pays each of its 13 board members at least $175,000 annually.
The fee increase would amount to a fraction of the millions in fines the company pays each year for air pollution violations in what amounts to a “pay to pollute” arrangement. It’s facilities habitually violate air pollution laws, and ACHD needs sufficient funds to ensure compliance and protect our health.
Please sign the petition asking that County Leadership Vote YES on operating permit fee increase.
Why is this important?
Why the increased permitting fees are essential:
- A properly funded Air Program could mean more effective health protections from dangerous air pollution. Without the increased permitting fees, the Air Program could be weakened, further harming Allegheny County residents who already suffer from asthma and other health problems.
- Increased permitting fees would be paid by plant operators and applicants – NOT taxpayers.
- This is especially important as the County is facing a large budget deficit.
- The fee increases are monies that would supplement the Allegheny County Health Department (ACHD) Air Program budget at no cost to taxpayers.
- Approving the fee increase shifts the burden of covering these costs to, in most cases, million - and billion dollar industries that can easily afford to pay it.
- The fee increase essentially makes these companies cover the costs of obeying the law.
- An adequately funded ACHD is critical to protecting the health of Allegheny County residents. Currently, the staff working to protect our air quality is under-resourced and overworked. https://www.post-gazette.com/news/health/2025/01/26/iulia-vann-allegheny-county-health-department/stories/202501190046
- The Clean Air Act requires ACHD to charge Title V facilities fees that are sufficient to cover the cost of administering the program.
- This critical fee upgrade is long overdue and is something the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) recommended in their 2018 audit of the ACHD Title V Air Program
- The large companies that profit from polluting Allegheny County’s air increase the burden on ACHD and make ACHD’s work more vital. Increased fees would help ACHD hold them accountable.
Who is against the fee increases?
- U.S. Steel is lobbying hard against the increased fees, a company that can easily afford to pay these increased permit fees:
- U.S. Steel disingenuously claims that the fee increases would have a detrimental impact.
- Under ACHD’s proposed fee increases, U.S. Steel’s annual total Title V fees for its Allegheny County facilities would be just 0.009% ($165,000) of U.S. Steel reported earnings of $2.14 billion in 2023.
- Compared to such monumental earnings, any claim that the significantly smaller Title V renewal permit fee, required only once every five years, would impact U.S. Steel’s coffers further strains credulity.
- The Clairton facility alone released 1.1 million pounds of toxic emissions into the air in 2021.
- Despite all evidence to the contrary, U.S. Steel also argues that its “steelmaking process is done in the safest and most environmentally responsible manner.” Yet in just the first quarter of 2023, ACHD found more than 1,500 instances of non-compliance at U.S. Steel's Clairton Plant alone.
- U.S. Steel’s egregious level of noncompliance required significant ACHD resources to identify and rein in, including for inspections and enforcement actions.
- Yet U.S. Steel's three Mon Valley facilities each currently pay an annual fee of $8,000 for the facility’s Title V permit - an inadequate amount.
- This imbalance between ACHD’s time and effort necessary to ensure compliance and the current fee structure exemplifies that raising the fees is needed and warranted.
- Additionally, for smaller facilities that emit less than 50 tons per year, the current fee of $8,000 will increase to only $15,000.
- The fee schedule thereby ensures that the largest facilities that most burden the community and ACHD are the focal point of these fee increases.
- U.S. Steel disingenuously claims that the fee increases would have a detrimental impact.
How it will be delivered
Email and social media.