Romney wants to let wind die

It’s official. If elected president, Mitt Romney will let the production tax credit (PTC) for wind power expire at the end of this year. President Obama has been asking Congress to extend the PTC before it expires.  

Here’s how the Romney campaign characterizes the candidate’s opposition to wind power, “He will allow the wind credit to expire, end the stimulus boondoggles, and create a level playing field on which all sources of energy can compete on their merits.” 

Boondoggle? Really Governor Romney? How can Romney characterize clean, reliable and growing source of electricity that employs more than 70,000 workers all across this country as a boondoggle? Well, he can because his funders demand it. The Koch Brother’s front group, Americans for Prosperity (AFP), is waging a nutty, fact-free war against renewable energy. To fight that war, AFP conscripts all Republican candidates for office with this warning not to go AWOL on the issue – “if you…buy into green energy or you play footsie on this issue, you do so at your political peril. “  

So, Romney, who vigorously supported renewable energy when he was governor of Massachusetts, turns coat and falls in line as a good foot soldier in the Koch Brother’s anti-clean energy jihad.   

By taking a position against the PTC, Romney effectively throws half of the 70,000 jobs in the wind energy industry under the bus, and that includes about 4,000 jobs here in Pennsylvania. The uncertainty over the extension of the PTC has already led to the cancellation of planned wind projects in Pennsylvania, and Gamesa, a wind project developer and manufacturer of wind turbine components, has furloughed 165 workers at its Pennsylvania plants. There are at least 15 facilities in Pennsylvania manufacturing components for the wind industry. The extension of the PTC would guarantee growth in the wind industry with the construction of wind projects fueling demand for components and creating jobs for construction workers. 

Wind power is currently providing about four percent of the nation’s electricity. In Texas, wind power generates more than 17 percent of the Lone Star State’s electricity on some days and five other states, South Dakota, Iowa, North Dakota, Minnesota and Wyoming, get 10 percent of their electricity from wind power. Wind-powered electricity is pollution-free and doesn’t need a drop of water. And the wind is free fuel. 

President Obama wisely wants to help the wind industry grow so it can be employing 100,000 workers by 2016 and generating a growing percentage of our electricity from non-polluting wind power. Meanwhile, Romney, whose positions on issues changes with the wind, will just tack blindly rightward at the expense of good-paying American jobs.

Gas drilling is good. Gas drilling is bad. Facing Marcellus facts

I just got done reading Seamus McGraw’s wonderful book, The End of Country, which captures the ambivalence that the people of rural Susquehanna and Bradford counties felt when drilling in the Marcellus shale began to radically change their landscape, their relationships to each other and their economic status. McGraw’s family became one of the “haves”. He, his sister and his mother decided to lease their land to the drillers and came into more money than they ever imagined. Their good fortune, however, was mitigated by the industrialization of the land itself, a process that felt to them like a loss and the plight of the "have nots" who got nothing out of the Marcellus jackpot.

I have been in the middle of the policy debates over gas drilling and often wished that the discourse could be conducted in a way that captures the ambivalence that McGraw so eloquently and honestly captures in his book. Unfortunately, the debate from the beginning has been characterized by hyperbole on both sides. That continues to this day. 

Last week, the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry brought the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s national gas drilling booster campaign, the Institute for 21^st Century Energy, to Pennsylvania at a press conference in the capitol rotunda. The goal of the campaign, according to Karen Harbert, head of the Institute is to ensure there is no hindrance or regulatory barriers to gas drilling.  In literature distributed to the press, the Institute claimed that gas drilling had created 140,000 jobs in Pennsylvania in 2010. Standing on the stage shoulder to shoulder with the chamber officials was Julia Hearthway, the secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry. 

They should have known better to make claims like that in front of reporters who have been covering Marcellus drilling for years. Don Gilliland of the Patriot News pointed out that Secretary Hearthway’s agency’s own numbers show that gas drilling has created 23,618 jobs over the last three years. Hearthway said she had not read those particular numbers and asked for more questions.  

The hype also continues on the other side. Josh Fox is again barnstorming the country promoting his new film about gas drilling, The Sky is Pink, in which he makes the claim that breast cancer rates spiked in areas of Texas where drilling is happening and not in other parts of the Lone Star State. Apparently, there is no data to support that assertion. Nevertheless, Fox refuses to acknowledge the facts that show breast cancer rates have not spiked in drilling areas.  

This Saturday, anti-fracking activists will go to Washington, DC for the “Stop the Frack Attack,” the first national rally against gas drilling. The participants, according to the website, will be “fracktivists, environmentalists and climate activists.” That prominent climate activists can call for the end of gas drilling in the middle of a brutal climate changed summer shows the power of anti-fracking ideology and its power to blind fractivists to the role natural gas plays in reducing carbon emissions. An issue brief released last week by the National Resources Defense Council shows that U.S. carbon emissions have fallen by nearly nine percent since 2005 even as the economy expanded by five percent. Most of that reduction came from electricity generation as power companies shut down coal plants and replaced coal-fired electricity with power generated by natural gas and wind. 

If you look hard enough, you can find some information that captures both the positive and negative impacts of gas drilling. The Penn State Center for Economic and Community Development has done a series of studies on the economic impact of gas drilling in north central Pennsylvania.  Generally, the studies find that, yes, gas drilling creates jobs and wealth, but those benefits are not shared equally by all the residents, and a lot of the money leaves Pennsylvania. As Seamus McGraw observed gas drilling creates “haves” and “have nots” in gas patch communities. Another Penn State study shows how gas drilling is chewing up Pennsylvania farmland and forests. 

The hype on both sides is the enemy of good public policy on gas drilling and produces bad law like Act 13. Gas drilling is good. It creates wealth, spurs economic development in formerly depressed areas and is essential for addressing climate change. Gas drilling is bad. It is hazardous, disrupts rural communities, threatens water supplies and chews up roads, farms and forests.

Each side in this polarized debate could use some of Seamus McGraw’s ambivalence, and endure the discomfort of facing the truth of each other’s facts.

NJ acts to save its solar industry – PA better step up

One of the stars of the Republican Party, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, signed a law today that will rescue the solar industry in the Garden State. Here’s what he said at the bill signing ceremony, “Today we’re taking a huge step to maintain New Jersey’s position as a national leader in the solar industry,” he said at the signing at the State House. “Already the solar industry in New Jersey has created thousands of jobs, generated over 800 megawatts of clean energy and helped businesses thrive and grow…….You’ll notice that all of the legislators standing behind me were from the other party and again this is another example of ways that we can act in a bipartisan fashion for the good of all the citizens of our state. Having renewable energy in our state, having it be a larger part of our portfolio, creating jobs, is not a Republican issue or Democratic issue. It’s an issue that the people of our state demand we work on together.”

 Wow! Now there’s a glimmer of desperately needed good news. Not only will New Jersey be able to keep those solar businesses and jobs, but it is able to do so because the legislators and the governor laid aside ideology and partisan politics to act in the public interest. In the middle of a hot poisonous partisan summer, the New Jersey solar bill is a bracing breath of fresh air.

The bill accelerates how fast solar energy must grow in New Jersey, and, at the same time, it contains provisions that protect consumers from excessive costs. The solar businesses in Pennsylvania are facing the same problem that spurred the need for the New Jersey law – an over-supply solar power has depressed the prices for solar energy credits, the means by which utilities comply with the standard. The Garden State’s action will make it harder for the Keystone State to retain its solar businesses when there are clearly greener pastures over the eastern border. 

Fortunately, a similar bill, HB 1580, with unusually strong bi-partisan support was introduced last October in Pennsylvania by Representative Chris Ross, a Republican from Chester County. The bill has more than 100 co-sponsors from both parties. Unfortunately, Rep. Robert Godshall, a Republican from Montgomery County will not allow the bill to come up for a vote in the Consumer Affairs Committee which he chairs. And, unlike Governor Christie, Governor Corbett opposes the bill despite the threat to the 750 solar businesses and their 4,000 employees in Pennsylvania. So the bill has languished and along with it solar business in Pennsylvania.   

No one expects the General Assembly to do much when it returns from its summer break in September. Legislators are loathe to take on substantial issues right before an election. But saving Pennsylvania’s solar energy industry should be an easy vote – the public overwhelmingly supports solar power, many now have solar panels on their roofs. There is NO political downside to a vote for solar power. The General Assembly should pass HB 1580 in September and give the voters something good before the members face them in November.

Pennsylvanians love clean energy – will pay more for it

Earlier this month the Center for Rural Pennsylvania, an agency created by the Pennsylvania General Assembly to conduct research on issues that impact rural communities and recommend policies to benefit rural residents, released a report that demonstrates the overwhelming public support for renewable energy, especially solar and wind power. Not only do both rural and urban residents favor increasing Pennsylvania’s supply of renewable energy, they are willing to pay up to $55 a year for the increase.

Data gathered through an extensive mail survey and in-person focus groups found that Pennsylvanians understand that growing our supply of clean, renewable energy will help us become energy independent. They also found that people overwhelmingly support energy conservation and efficiency measures and think conservation and efficiency deserve more attention from individuals and local governments and the state and federal government. They also think energy policy is important and are concerned that there is no long-term, comprehensive energy policy at either the state or federal level. 

Overall, the report found strong preferences for energy generated by hydropower, solar and wind power and for energy conservation. Energy generated by burning waste coal was the least preferred. While there was strong support for renewable energy across the political spectrum, there was an interesting split in energy preferences between those who identified themselves as being liberal or moderate and self-identified conservatives with liberals and moderates strongly preferring renewables and conservatives leaning more toward natural gas, nuclear and coal-generated energy.

Other findings of the report: 

·       79 percent agreed that they want more of Pennsylvania’s electricity to come from renewable energy sources;

·       65 percent disagreed that the government should not encourage the development of renewable energy because of cost;

·       51 percent agreed that the state’s renewable energy standard – the Alternative Energy Portfolio Standard (AEPS) – should be made stronger; and,

·       66 percent agreed that all Pennsylvanians should share any increased cost of generating renewable energy.

The AEPS, enacted in 2004, has been highly successful. At the time, it gave Pennsylvania one of the strongest renewable energy standards – 18 percent of our electricity must come from alternative energy sources with 8 percent coming from wind, solar and other renewable sources by 2019. It has created solar and wind industries that employ thousands of Pennsylvanians in installing power projects and manufacturing components for wind and solar technologies.

The report notes that for states with renewable standards, the average standard is 20 percent. For Pennsylvania’s renewable energy industries to remain competitive with surrounding states and keep renewable businesses and their employees working here, the Commonwealth should increase its standard. At the very least, the General Assembly should pass Rep. Chris Ross’ House Bill 1580 which would make a minor adjustment to the solar standard to address an oversupply of solar power resulting from the success of the AEPS and other federal and state incentives. 

Pennsylvanians clearly understand the need for a comprehensive energy policy that charts a course for the future where renewable energy grows, energy efficiency keeps demand in check, nimble natural gas enhances reliability, nuclear power provides a foundation and the use of dirty coal decreases. Right now, the Corbett administration opposes increasing our supply of renewable energy and is focused only on developing our gas resource. 

Pennsylvanians are ready for a broader energy vision. Will we get that vision from this governor?

Pennsylvania lags on Chesapeake Bay clean up

The 25-year effort primarily by Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia to clean up the Chesapeake Bay has been marked by repeated failures to achieve long-term pollution reduction goals. After acknowledging in 2008 that a goal set in 2000 to restore the bay to health by 2010 would also fall woefully short, the states agreed to a new date for achieving a restored bay – 2025. And for the first time, they agreed to hold themselves accountable to rigorous new two-year pollution reduction goals to allow them to measure their progress toward getting pollution down to levels that would clean up the waters of the bay and its tributaries. 

The first day of reckoning arrived this year for the 2009-2011 milestone goals, and the states submitted reports to the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which oversees the Chesapeake Bay cleanup program, that reveal their success at keeping the bay cleanup on track. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) and the Choose Clean Water Coalition (CCWC) released an analysis of those milestone reports to evaluate whether or not the states are on track in implementing key water pollution reduction strategies they are relying on to meet the goals. The groups noted general problems with data sources, some estimates and assumptions with all the agencies involved including the EPA. However, they were able to present a snapshot of where the states are in their cleanup efforts. 

In Pennsylvania the Chesapeake Bay cleanup is primarily a Susquehanna River cleanup. The Susquehanna delivers 50 percent of the bay’s fresh water, so Pennsylvania needs to save the river to save the bay. The CBF/CCWC analysis shows that while Pennsylvania is making some progress in reducing pollution to the Susquehanna, the state is lagging in implementing some key cleanup measures it is counting on to reach the overall cleanup goals, most notably in getting farmers to meet some regulatory requirements.  According to the analysis, Pennsylvania achieved only four out of ten key milestone goals.

Farmers who use manure as fertilizer are required to have nutrient management plans that detail how much manure they are spreading and how much nitrogen and phosphorus the crops use, and the Pennsylvania milestone goal was to have those plans for 129,250 acres of farmland. Pennsylvania missed this milestone - only 59 percent of those acres are covered by a nutrient management plan. That puts Pennsylvania only 7 percent of the way toward reaching the final 2025 goal. All farmers are required to have conservation plans designed to protect water quality. Pennsylvania’s two year goal was to get farmers to do conservation plans for 327,559 acres of farmland and Pennsylvania was able to reach only 46 percent of that goal and only 10 percent of the final 2025 goal. 

Cities, towns and townships in the Susquehanna basin are having a hard time meeting the stormwater management goals and only achieved 1 percent of the two-year milestone. Putting stormwater controls in place can be prohibitively expensive for local governments. A lack of funding, confusion over what is required and a lack of good data are hampering the stormwater control efforts.

Pennsylvania made a lot of progress meeting its nutrient pollution reduction goals from wastewater treatment plants. Upgrades at sewage treatment plants have produced reductions greater than the 2-year milestone goal. In fact, sewage treatment plants have fully met the 2025 phosphorus pollution reduction goal.  

The pollution that is degrading the Susquehanna and contributing to the decline of the bass is largely the same pollution that has degraded the bay. Pollution from agriculture, primarily the disposal of manure on farm fields, is still the biggest source of the river’s and the bay’s woes. It’s also the hardest to control as success depends on individual farmers adopting farming practices that reduce polluted runoff and soil erosion.  

To clean up the river and save the bay, Pennsylvania will need to do even more to educate farmers about the new pollution control requirements, provide financial help to get pollution controls on the ground and then hold farmers accountable for implementing them.

Cracker plant tax credit is not a production credit. It’s an ethane purchase credit

In all the considerable media coverage the tax credit for the Shell cracker plant has received, most reporters and bloggers have missed a key detail. The tax credit is not a production tax credit. Shell will not receive a nickel for each gallon of ethylene it makes at the cracker plant.  

No, no, no – taxpayers will give Shell a nickel credit for each gallon of ethane it BUYS. You can see for yourself by reading the fiscal code bill that authorized the credit. I’ll save you the work of wading through all 139 pages of the bill. You can find the language on page 70-71: 

“Section 1703-G. Application and approval of tax credit.

(a)   Rate.‑‑The tax credit shall be equal to $0.05 per gallon of ethane purchased and used in manufacturing ethylene in this Commonwealth by a qualified taxpayer.”

This is an important distinction. Just yesterday the Pittsburgh Tribune Review reported that even after all the tax breaks Pennsylvania taxpayers will hand over to Shell, the company has not yet made its final decision to build the plant in Beaver County. The key factor that needs to be in place is an adequate supply of ethane. Shell’s gas drilling subsidiary is ramping up its production and assessing how much ethane it can get out of its gas wells on 175,000 acres it controls in five western Pennsylvania counties.  

So where will Shell’s cracker plant buy its ethane from at a nickel a gallon tax credit? Well, it will buy most of it from the Shell gas drilling subsidiary.

Sweet.

Your simple 3-step, 5 document road to a valid voter's ID

I have to say that I wasn’t really paying attention to the debate over the new identification requirements that all Pennsylvania voters now need to cast their ballots this November. I figured most folks have drivers’ licenses and the number of people affected would be small. I did recognize it as an attempt to reduce the number of Democratic voters, and I did buy the argument that voter fraud is really not a widespread or even a minimal problem.

Actually, I kind of thought it was an act of Republican desperation. The nation’s demographics are powerfully working against the Republican Party whose members are overwhelmingly old, conservative and white.

Chart from Blogcritics - age of Republican voters

Age Range

Graph

Percent

18-27

6%

28-37

14%

38-47

15%

48-57

24%

58+

37%

Here’s some Gallup polling.

A New York Magazine piece on the desperate Republican attempt to stem the demographic tide and win this presidential election at any cost notes, “the electorate was growing both somewhat better educated and dramatically less white, making every successive election less favorable for the GOP.” It underscores that observation with the demographic fact that in 30 years, non-white voters will outnumber white voters, and points out that keeping those non-white voters from the polls is a key Republican strategy. Our own Representative Mike Turzai, House majority leader, confirmed the strategy and boasted in a speech at a recent Republican gathering that keeping some voters from the polls will guarantee a Romney presidency. He got a round of applause for his efforts to disenfranchise voters.

OK, so the Republicans are in desperation mode; they’re going all in to win this election seeing it as a last chance to appoint Supreme Court justices who will further erode the right to vote, punish immigrants, and hand more power over to corporations. This is ugly, I thought, but really, how many Pennsylvania voters won’t already have proper identification to vote.

Then PennDOT ran the numbers. More than 750,000 Pennsylvanians lack the identification that will be required at the polls – nine percent of all voters – 18 percent of voters in Philadelphia lack the needed ID.

Not to worry, though. The Corbett administration having realized that some people will need basic information to get the valid voter identification they need has helpfully hired, at a cost of about a quarter of a million dollars, a Republican fundraising, public relations and lobbying firm to create two 30-second TV ads  to get the word out. You have the right to vote, the ads say, and you need identification to do so. If you don’t have the required ID, the ads flash a web address for more information for a full three seconds at the end of the spots. Hope you don’t miss it. Hope you have an internet connection.

If you’re fast enough to note the votepa web address, after three clicks, you arrive at the PennDOT website with the simple three step, five document process that you will need to navigate to get your valid voter’s ID -  copied below. Don’t forget to download, print and sign your Oath/Affirmation Voter ID form (form DL-54A).

Step1
To obtain a Pennsylvania Photo Identification card, an individual needs to visit a Pennsylvania Department of Transportation Driver License Center with a completed Application for an Initial Photo Identification Card; form DL-54A, and the following:

Social Security Card
AND
One of the following:

• Certificate of U.S. Citizenship  
• Certificate of Naturalization
• Valid U.S. Passport
• *Birth Certificate with a raised seal

PLUS

• Two proofs of **residency such as lease agreements, current utility bills, mortgage documents, W-2 form, tax records

*If they do not have a birth certificate with a raised seal and are a Pennsylvania native; and do not have one of the acceptable, alternative forms of photo identification to vote; and will provide a signed oath/affirmation form, when visiting the PennDOT driver license center, they must:

• Tell the PennDOT customer service representative they are a Pennsylvania native who needs a photo ID for voting purposes, and do not have a certified copy of their birth certificate;
• Sign an oath/affirmation that they do not have an acceptable form of ID for voting purposes and the photo ID is needed for voting purposes;
• Show a Social Security card and two proofs of residence, such as a deed, lease, tax bill, or utility bill;
• Fill out a DL-54A form requesting a non-driver photo ID and;
• Complete the HD01564F (Request for Certification of Birth Record for Voter ID Purposes Only) form, which collects information such as birth name, mother and father's name and place of birth. This Department of Health form is available at all Driver Licensing Centers.

PennDOT will then forward the completed form to the Department of Health, which maintains birth records. After verifying the birth record is on file, the Department of Health will securely transmit this information to PennDOT. PennDOT will then notify them by letter that their birth record has been confirmed. They may then return to any driver license center, with the above noted documentation, to receive your free photo ID for voting purposes. This verification process will take about ten days and does not require the payment of a fee.

**Students at least 18 years of age: Accepted proofs of residency include the room assignment paperwork (considered a lease) and one bill with their dorm room address on it. Bank statements, paystubs and credit card bills are all acceptable. Other Individuals who may not have any bills, leases or mortgage documents in their name may bring the person with whom they are living along with their Driver’s License or Photo ID to a driver license center as one proof of residence.

Step 2
When their application and supporting documentation have been reviewed and processed, a Driver License Center staff member will direct the applicant to the Photo Center to have their photo taken for their Photo ID card.

Step 3
Once their photo has been taken, they will be issued a Photo ID card.

The Susquehanna has a fever

Last Saturday at 5:26 p.m. the United States Geological Survey (USGS) river monitor at Harrisburg recorded a water temperature of 33.5 degrees Celsius which equates to 92.3 degrees Fahrenheit. Sunday morning the same monitor recorded a dissolved oxygen level of 4.9 milligrams per liter (mg/L). 

Studies done by the USGS in cooperation with the Fish and Boat Commission, the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and the Susquehanna River Basin Commission over the last several years have demonstrated that very warm water and associated low dissolved oxygen levels between May 1 and July 31 are sickening and killing bass born in the spring. The warmer the water, the less dissolved oxygen it can hold. The Environmental Protection Agency has determined that early life stage fish need a dissolved oxygen level of 5 mg/L to survive. Young bass hang out near the shore in shallow, slow-moving water. Those areas are warmer and have lower dissolved oxygen levels than the water in the main channel.  

In 2008 at a monitoring station at Clemson Island, upstream from Harrisburg, dissolved oxygen levels dropped below 5 mg/L during 31 of the 92 days of the May 1 to July 31 – a critical period for the survival of newly-born bass. On one day in 2008, dissolved oxygen levels remained below 5 mg/L for more than eight hours. The young fish during that time were essentially like a puppy left in a car with the windows up on a 95 degree day. 

The USGS study compared the Susquehanna’s water temperatures and dissolved oxygen levels to those in Pennsylvania’s other big warm water rivers – the Delaware and the Allegheny. It found that the Susquehanna was consistently warmer and had consistently lower dissolved oxygen levels than the other two rivers.  

One key factor in dissolved oxygen levels is the amount of plant nutrients – nitrogen and phosphorus – present in the water. High levels of those nutrients causes growth surges in water plants and algae. During the daylight hours, those plants produce oxygen, but when the sun goes down, they suck oxygen out of the water. Over the last several years there have been big blooms of stringy algae in the Susquehanna. 

Thanks to the Chesapeake Bay clean up, upgrades of sewage plants and better farming practices, total levels of nutrients have been coming down in the Susquehanna over the last decade. So, what’s causing big algae and plant blooms in the river? Another USGS study identified a potential culprit – dissolved inorganic phosphorus which has been rising dramatically in the river for more than a decade. The rise in levels of dissolved inorganic phosphorus has coincided with big algae blooms. 

A likely source of the dissolved inorganic phosphorus is manure spread on fields. Farmers have been spreading manure on some fields for so long that they are becoming super-saturated with phosphorus. When farmers spread on more manure on phosphorus-saturated fields, it simply runs off into the nearest waterway.

The Chesapeake Bay clean up plan is designed to further bring down the levels of total phosphorus going into the river, but it does not address the new problem of dissolved inorganic phosphorus. That is why it is so important for Pennsylvania to develop a specific cleanup plan that specifically targets the Susquehanna’s pollution problems. The Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission and environmental organizations have asked DEP to officially declare the river polluted and begin the process to develop a plan to cut the pollution that’s making the river and the bass sick. DEP secretary Michael Krancer has refused the request saying we don’t know what’s killing the bass.

Well, yes we do - it's warming water and increasing levels of pollutants like dissolved inorganic phosphorus. The warming water is directly linked to climate change and that's a long-term problem in need of urgent action. That makes it all the more urgent to cut the amount of dissolved inorganic phosphorus getting into the river by seriously addressing the likely source - over application of manure on farmers' fields.

There is more than enough information for DEP to take the step of officially acknowledging the river is polluted and no longer can support the survival of young bass. This summer the sick Susquehanna is running a fever. We need to take action to bring the fever down and save the Susquehanna.

Cracker jobs worth a governor’s ransom – wind jobs not worth a signature

Governor Corbett says that he’s focused on creating jobs in Pennsylvania – but while he's willing to pay a governor's ransom for some jobs, he won't even sign his name to keep others . For those yet-to-be created jobs at the Shell cracker plant, he’s willing to pony up more than half a million dollars for each construction worker brought in to build the plant. But he has turned his back on the 3,000 jobs in Pennsylvania connected to the wind industry and the 4,000 jobs in 750 businesses in the solar industry.

 Why isn’t the governor in every arena possible scrapping for those 12,000 existing jobs and standing up for the families those jobs sustain? He’s had the chance. In December, he removed his name from the Governor’s Wind Coalition letter urging Congress to extend the production tax credit (PTC) for wind energy. He opposes a minor adjustment to the state’s solar energy standard that would help even out the supply of solar energy with the demand. 

The failure of Congress to pass the PTC has led to the cancellation of major wind projects in Pennsylvania. And now, Gamesa, a wind company that manufactures turbine blades and other wind turbine components has announced 165 layoffs at its two plants in the state, one in Ebensburg in Cambria County and another in Fairless Hills in Bucks County. The governor has not called on the Pennsylvania Congressional delegation to take action to save those jobs. He has not expressed any concern for the loss of those 165 paychecks. 

Shell is holding Pennsylvania state government for ransom as it plays the Commonwealth against Ohio and West Virginia for the cracker plant. The governor has gladly conceded to any demand by the company.  He has put all his job creation eggs in the natural gas basket. The tax credit legislation passed with the budget gives Shell a nickel tax credit for each gallon of ethane it purchases to produce ethylene at the future cracker plant. There is no limit on the size of the credit that Shell will get. The only accountability built into the legislation to ensure jobs materialize is a requirement for somebody to produce 2,500 jobs during construction of the plant.  

The original cracker tax credit concept put a limit of $1.7 billion in tax credits for Shell. At that level, the per job taxpayer subsidy for 2,500 construction workers would be $680,000. And those probably will not be Shell employees but workers of the contractors who will build the plant. 

$680,000 would keep lots of teachers, policemen and fire fighters on the job. Ten of those $680,000 subsidies would keep all 165 people at the Gamesa plants working at a salary of about $41,000.   

Every job loss puts the former worker’s family in economic distress. The loss of income hurts other local businesses. In the case of public workers, those job losses diminish education and public safety. Every job matters, especially the ones that are already here.

Who is watching the water in southwest PA

Last Thursday, the Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC), which regulates how much water industries can withdraw from the Susquehanna and its tributaries, ordered 22 companies to suspend their withdrawals because of low water conditions in north central Pennsylvania . This is the second time this year the SRBC has ordered water users to stop taking water from streams that have hit critical low flows. The 22 companies hold 37 permits to take water from our rivers and streams. Many of the companies affected by the suspension order are gas drillers. 

The SRBC keeps close tabs on the amount of water in streams and the demand for water from the companies it regulates through a system of gauges and meters to protect aquatic life and ensure enough water is flowing downstream for other water users. Companies may not take water out if their withdrawals would leave too little water in streams and rivers. 

Unfortunately, there is no river basin commission in the Ohio River basin, which includes the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers and their tributaries, keeping tabs on water levels in those streams. Under the authority of the Pennsylvania Clean Streams Law the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has included water withdrawal restrictions in gas drilling permits in the Ohio basin. Unfortunately, DEP does not have the monitoring system in place to determine when specific streams, especially smaller streams, fall below critical levels. Without a robust monitoring system, DEP has scant, if any, capacity to determine if drillers are complying with their water use restrictions. To date, DEP has never ordered gas drillers operating in western Pennsylvania to suspend their water withdrawals. 

In total, there is more than enough water available to gas drilling operations despite their significant demand on water resources. Gas drilling requires much less water than electric power plants, for example. The problem with the water demands of the gas drillers is localized. Their demand for water may diminish water flows below critical levels on some of the smaller streams they use. None of the suspensions ordered by the SRBC take from the main stem of the Susquehanna. The suspensions affect smaller creeks and tributaries. 

So, who is watching southwestern Pennsylvania stream levels to ensure the drillers aren’t taking water when there is too little to take?