Third Act PA

06/18/2026

From rural towns to suburban communities, nowhere in Pennsylvania is safe from the threat of massive data center development, and our municipalities need more time to prepare.

House Bill 2496, introduced by Rep. Paul Friel will give all Pennsylvania municipalities an opportunity to pause data center development for 6 months, allowing them to update, alter, or develop stronger zoning ordinances that can help better manage the rapid pace of data center development.

This bill just moved out of committee & we need your help to urge your state rep to take up the vote and vote YES to House Bill 2496! Take action here: https://secure.everyaction.com/kSP7YCMTr0-jXYpJ_QKyqg2

06/18/2026

Even though some people refuse to accept it, SOLAR is here. 🌞

A link to the report is in the comments.

Our Solar PA
Citizens' Climate Lobby Philadelphia
PennEnvironment
PennFuture

06/18/2026

Adam Federman of Type Investigations said the administration’s strategy for cracking down on those who oppose its political agenda appears to be: “Define a loose coalition of activists opposed to the government’s immigration policies as Antifa, make the case that Antifa is a terrorist organization, and then prosecute them on conspiracy charges. We’re going to see a lot more of this.”

Via Common Dreams: NSPM-7 ... was issued weeks after the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk and focuses exclusively on left-wing and “anti-fascist” activities, mandating a “national strategy to investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts.”
Around the same time, Trump issued an executive order asserting that “antifa,” or the anti-fascist movement, had been designated as a “domestic terrorist organization,” despite the fact that there is no centralized antifa group and that the president does not have the authority to make such a designation.

A link to the article is in the comments.

06/17/2026

Thank you to Senator Katie Muth for working to slow the growth of AI data centers in PA.

Via The Guardian: In packed meetings across Pennsylvania, residents are trying to stop datacenters from becoming their new neighbors. They’re pressuring local officials to pass protective local ordinances and block developers’ proposals – sometimes it works.
Many Pennsylvania residents feel overwhelmed by the pace of development. They want more time. Beth Livensperger, who is fighting a proposed datacenter in Lehigh valley, says a statewide moratorium would help her find other locals to build opposition and allow for more research on the environmental and public health effects: “I’m 100% for it: it would give time for the politics to settle out a little more.”..Senator Katie Muth wants to buy East Vincent and other communities like it some time. On 29 May, she introduced a three-year moratorium on building large datacenters and the infrastructure required to run them. The bill would apply to constructing new “hyperscale” datacenters that use at least 20 megawatts, and proposed expansions to existing ones that would tip them over this power threshold. Muth joins lawmakers in at least 12 other states and Democratic senators in Congress in fighting for temporary bans on new datacenters.

A link is in the comments.

I was recently included in a Guardian piece highlighting what communities in Senate District 44 and across Pennsylvania are dealing with as hyperscale AI data center proposals move into densely populated residential areas.

I’ve introduced SB1359, a three-year moratorium on hyperscale data center development, and SB1114, the Ratepayer Protection Act, to ensure large load customers pay their fair share instead of shifting massive grid costs onto families and small businesses.

In Pennsylvania, we’ve seen these projects advance with outsized influence from well-funded corporate interests, often aided by corporate politicians looking to cash in, while the people of the Commonwealth are left dealing with very real impacts: rising utility bills, strain on our electric grid, and serious concerns about noise, water use, and long-term property values when these mega-industrial facilities are sited adjacent to heavily populated areas.

I’ll keep fighting for transparency, accountability, and policies that put the PEOPLE of Pennsylvania first.

The link to the article can be found in the comments.

06/17/2026

Not-so-funnies for today.

Note that state Senator Stefano, who chairs the committee where community solar legislation (HB504) sits, has said that solar "doesn't work" in PA. 🙄🤦‍♀️

Our Solar PA
PennEnvironment
PennFuture
Pennsylvania Land & Liberty Coalition
Citizens' Climate Lobby Philadelphia

06/14/2026

Via Allegheny Front: In the [Pennsylvania] House, [plug-in solar is] getting bipartisan support. “I’m trying to make sure that we have as many options as possible to help keep the burden of increased electricity costs for Pennsylvanians as low as possible,” said Representative Gary Day of Lehigh County, who is one of three Republican co-sponsors of the bill.
Even though House Republicans have opposed solar programs in the past, he said they support an “all of the above” energy strategy. The bill’s Democratic sponsors say if the plug-in solar bill doesn’t pass this time around, they will keep reintroducing it.

Our Solar PA
PennEnvironment
PennFuture
Pennsylvania Land & Liberty Coalition
Southeastern PA Group of the Sierra Club
Citizens' Climate Lobby PhiladelphiaCitizens' Climate Lobby - Lehigh Valley

06/14/2026

Great op-ed about plug-in or balcony solar.
Also note the reference to community solar, which we still don't have in PA. (HB504/SB504)
Legislation to allow plug-in solar, HB1971, has been introduced in the PA House.

"It’s not so easy to harvest the sunshine if you live in America. Homeowners can hire someone to install solar on their rooftops, but it can take many years for it to pay for itself. You might be able to buy a share in a nearby solar farm, but only if you’re lucky enough to live in a place where community solar is available. If you live in an apartment or condo, forget it — in many states, you have no options at all.
But that might be changing soon in more than half the country. A technology — known as plug-in, balcony or garden solar — is already enormously popular in Germany, in part because you can buy a kit for less than $600 at IKEA. It’s a small solar panel system, often producing up to 1,200 watts of electricity, or a little more than a refrigerator consumes, that you can affix to a wall, hang on a railing or prop up in a garden — and then plug directly into a wall socket. With the help of a small device called a micro inverter, it pumps electricity into your household circuits to offset your power demand.
At least 30 states have passed legislation to legalize these plug-in solar kits or are considering similar bills. The idea has wide appeal: Last year, Republican-led Utah became the first state in the country to allow plug-in solar sales.
Although these kits are modest in scale, they have the potential to change how Americans understand and consume energy. More states should get on board with them as part of a broader campaign to transform how our country harnesses renewable and zero-carbon power." -- Robinson Meyer, founding executive editor of Heatmap, a media company focused on climate change

A gift link to the full op-ed is in the comments.

Our Solar PA
PennEnvironment
PennFuture
Pennsylvania Land & Liberty Coalition
Southeastern PA Group of the Sierra Club
Citizens' Climate Lobby Philadelphia
Citizens' Climate Lobby - Lehigh Valley

06/13/2026

On this day in 1963, civil rights activist Medgar Evers was assassinated at his home in Jackson, Mississippi.

Bob Dylan wrote a powerful song about Evers, "Only a Pawn in Their Game," which he sang a couple months later at the March on Washington on Aug. 28, 1963.

With the Supreme Court's shredding of the Voting Rights Act and the MAGA states' rush to weaken Black citizens' voting rights through gerrymandering, all of this history is rushing back at us.

Via Wiki:
Evers lived with the constant threat of death. A large white supremacist population and the Ku Klux Klan were present in Jackson and its suburbs. The risk was so high that before his death, Evers and his wife Myrlie had trained their children on what to do in case of a shooting, bombing, or other kind of attack on their lives. Evers, who was regularly followed home by at least two FBI cars and a police car, arrived at his home on the morning of his death without an es**rt. None of his usual protection was present for reasons unspecified by the FBI or local police. There has been speculation that many members of the police force at the time were members of the Klan.
In the early morning of Wednesday, June 12, 1963, just hours after President John F. Kennedy's nationally televised Civil Rights Address, Evers pulled into his driveway after returning from a meeting with NAACP lawyers. His family had worried for his safety that day, and Evers himself had warned his wife that he felt in greater danger than usual.
Emerging from his car and carrying NAACP T-shirts that read "Jim Crow Must Go," Evers was struck in the back with a bullet fired from an Eddystone Enfield 1917 rifle; the bullet passed through his heart. Initially thrown to the ground by the impact of the shot, Evers rose and staggered 30 feet before collapsing outside his front door. His wife, Myrlie, was the first to find him.
Evers was taken to the local hospital in Jackson, where he was initially refused entry because of his race. Evers' family explained who he was, and he was admitted; Evers died in the hospital 50 minutes later, three weeks before his 38th birthday. Evers was the first African-American man to be admitted to an all-white hospital in Mississippi. Mourned nationally, Evers was buried on June 19 in Arlington National Cemetery, where he received full military honors before a crowd of more than 3,000 people.... In 2026, the Trump administration removed brochures at the monument that called Evers' murderer Byron De La Beckwith a racist. They also removed the description of Evers being found in a pool of blood. The moves are among censorship of history about slavery and racism at several National Park Service sites. Evers had previously been removed from Arlington National Cemetery's website as an African American veteran.

The Bootleg Series Vol. 18: Through The Open Window, 1956-1963 out now: https://bobdylan.lnk.to/Bootleg18YDOfficial Audio for "Only a Pawn in Their Game" by ...

06/12/2026

We love climate scientists. 🩵

Via the Guardian:

06/12/2026

PA lawmakers talk a big game of an "all of the above" approach to energy. That's not what we have though. We get about 1.5% of our electricity from solar and 2% from wind. About 60% is from fracked gas, 30% from nuclear, and 7% from coal. So most of our energy is still dug up from "below." That's costing us $$$$$$$$$.

Via the Corporate Energy Buyers Association: Constraints on new solar and wind could add $81.2 billion, or $11.6 billion annually, in electricity and natural gas costs to household energy bills over the modeled seven-year period. Commercial and industrial customers across the U.S. are also projected to pay an additional $40 billion, or $5.7 billion annually, in electricity costs alone over the modeled period if new solar and wind resources are constrained. Combined, Americans are looking at the possibility of least $121.2 billion in additional energy costs over the next seven years.

Link in the comments.