Who We Are
The Coalition for Affordable Bay Solutions (CABS) is a non-profit advocacy group formed to support the creation of a competitively-bid procurement program for nutrient (nitrogen and phosphorus) reductions in Pennsylvania.
What We Do
Pennsylvania is substantially behind in its commitment to reduce nutrients under the US EPA’s Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) regulations and could face costly sanctions beginning in 2017. Estimates of the cost to the Commonwealth’s tax- and rate-payers to comply with the regulations using current strategies exceed available local, state and federal budgets.
A 2013 Legislative Budget and Finance Committee report demonstrated the cost to comply with the Chesapeake Bay mandates could be reduced by as much as 80 percent through a competitive bidding program that would engage the private sector. Competitive bidding is a strategy used throughout federal, state and local government to procure the lowest-cost goods and services, while providing transparency and accountability to the taxpayer. The study was updated in 2018 to reflect new policy from US EPA; the updated study showed taxpayer savings of 90 percent.
A 2015 study by the University of Maryland’s Environmental Finance Center reached similar conclusions on Chesapeake Bay compliance strategies, stating, “it is essential that financing and funding decisions be made based on efficiency and effectiveness of projects rather than political outcomes and motivations”.
Policy Committee
Ron Kreider, CEO, Kreider Farms
Mike McCloskey, CEO, Fair Oaks Dairy
Hugh Archer, President, Mavickar Environmental Consulting
Steve Stoughton, VP Business Development, Worth & Co.
Dominic Bassani, CEO, Bion Environmental Technologies