PA Environmental Hearing Board denies environmentalists’ discovery request in Renovo Energy Center case

HARRISBURG, PA – The state Environmental Hearing Board on Wednesday turned down a request from Clean Air Council, Citizens for Pennsylvania’s Future and Center for Biological Diversity in their attempt to gather more information in the environmentalists’ continued legal effort in opposition to the Renovo Energy Center project, a billion dollar natural gas-to-electricity facility proposed for Renovo’s north side.

In a five-page opinion and order signed by hearing board Judge Bernard A. Labuskes Jr, the state board denied discovery requests from the environmental groups. Those groups are challenging the air quality plan approval issued by the state Department of Environmental Protection to Renovo Energy Center. The plan approval would allow the construction of a 1,240 megawatt two-unit electric power plant at the old railyard yard acreage in Renovo.

The board order said the environmentalists’ discovery requests “are not in line with the nature and scope of the appeal of the plan approval extension” and “the record shows there has already been a great deal of discovery relating to the project over the last two years.” The order also said, “The matter is ripe for a hearing on the merits.” That hearing would be the next step in the ongoing process to bring the project to fruition. The order also said, “We are sympathetic to Renovo’s concern that the plan approval extension should not serve as a basis for delaying adjudication of the merits of the Department’s decision to approve this project.”

DEP and the Renovo Energy Center had moved last December, seeking the state Environmental Hearing Board to continue the project’s hearing process even as the environmental groups challenge to the long-delayed Renovo energy project remained pending. The state hearing board on Wednesday sided with DEP and REC.

Clean Air Council, PennFuture, and the Center for Biological Diversity in November had appealed an October 2022 DEP extension of Renovo Energy Center’s air pollution permit for the gas-fired power plant. That DEP extension allows the power plant developer an additional 18 months, through April 27, 2024, to build the power plant. DEP originally permitted the plant in April 2021.

Plans for the billion-dollar energy plant were first disclosed in 2014.