Gov. Josh Shapiro’s committee to draft climate change plans is meeting in private.

There are no plans to keep public minutes of these secretive meetings. And, as the Associated Press reported in Monday’s edition of the Williamsport Sun-Gazette, the governor will not even disclose who is serving on this panel, beyond the two men tasked with chairing it.

One co-chairman is from the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmentalist lobbying group and the other a former business manager for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

We cannot fathom the justification for this level of secrecy for a panel organized by a governor, to address an issue often prone to extremism and alarmism.

We hope that Gov. Shapiro will reconsider the likely erosion of faith the public — particularly those voters already skeptical of environmental action — will have in this endeavor.

If he won’t, we hope or state legislators will consider the precedent of allowing an unelected body to conduct itself with so little transparency and accountability. At the very least, we hope they consider the precedent of seeking advice and council from a panel so thoroughly shielded from public scrutiny when this committee offers whatever recommendations on which it may be working.

The taxpaying public of Pennsylvania should expect a state government that is responsive to its needs, concerns and criticisms. Not a state government that arrogantly hides from those concerns and criticisms.