By Jacquelyn Bonomo, PennFuture

Pennsylvania is approaching a steep precipice, and the ramifications will be irreversible if we tumble over the edge and link our future to fracked gas, petrochemicals and plastics.

The precipice, in this case, is the potential enactment of a new state law that passed in the General Assembly on Feb. 4 that could cement Pennsylvania’s economy as one beholden and inextricably linked to the fossil fuel industry for decades to come.

Called House Bill 1100, the legislation is part of an overall package dubbed “Energize PA.”

This bill will be a bonanza for the fracked gas, plastics and petrochemical industries, as our state seeks to attract more pollution and polluters to Pennsylvania with giant subsidies and regulatory rollbacks.

Specifically, the bill establishes the same tax credit provided to Royal Dutch Shell, which is building a massive ethane-to-plastics cracker facility in Beaver County.

Despite being one of the largest and wealthiest corporations on the planet, Pennsylvania lawmakers in 2012 saw fit to award the company a tax break equivalent to $1.6 billion over 25 years.

Shell has anticipated that 600 full-time jobs will be created when the plant becomes operational, which means each job at the facility along the Ohio River carries with it a subsidy price tag of about $2.7 million.

The price per job will become even more costly if the promised employment numbers do not pan out.

This courting of, and devotion to, the fossil fuel industry is nothing new for Pennsylvania, which has a centuries-long history of tethering its economy to extractive industries such as coal mining, oil and shallow gas.

It’s a narrative that has repeated itself time and again.

Elected officials promulgate tired ideas-- in this case, extracting every last drop of Pennsylvania gas so that energy, petrochemical and plastics companies can derive profits from our natural resources.

With the climate crisis worsening each day and the fact that those industries have a poor environmental record, a question begs to be asked: Why do Pennsylvania taxpayers owe those kind of companies our monetary largesse to expand here?

Our elected leaders who pushed House Bill 1100 aren’t just asking us to shoulder the financial burden now. If it holds true to form, the industry will eventually abandon Pennsylvania, leaving taxpayers to clean up its messes.

One only has to look at the hundreds of thousands of abandoned shallow gas wells or polluting culm piles littering the coal region for ever-present reminders about our past follies.

Those visual reminders, however, seemingly aren’t enough to prevent our elected officials from attempting to repeat history.

The Department of Revenue estimates that the tax credit contained within House Bill 1100 is worth an average of $22 million annually per new petrochemical facility. That means our tax dollars will be used for a return on investment that includes literal tons of poisonous emissions.

The Shell petrochemical facility in Beaver County alone will erase 30 years of improvements in regional air quality, and the plant will spew 522 tons of volatile organic compounds and 348 tons of nitrogen oxides into our air annually.

Pennsylvanians don’t need corporate neighbors that value profit margins and plastics more than people. We don’t need our elected leaders offering taxpayer handouts in return for pollution, sickness and eventual abandonment.

We do not disparage good jobs, good wages or labor unions working to create both. But there is a better path forward, and the days of relying on heavy industry for prosperity should be behind us.

Neighboring states are making major investments in renewable energy and the jobs of the future. They will reap the benefits of a new economy while Pennsylvania taxpayers are being asked to swallow a bitter pill of subsidizing an industry whose legacy is emerging around radioactive water, low birth weights and cancer clusters.

PennFuture applauds each legislator in Harrisburg who voted against this dangerous bill, and we are sincerely thankful that Gov. Tom Wolf has stated publicly his intent to veto it.

(Photo: Shell Ethane Plant in Beaver County under construction- Public Source.)

Jacquelyn Bonomo is president and CEO of PennFuture, a Harrisburg-based nonprofit organization focusing on energy and environmental issues.

[Note: Although the Senate and House took final action on House Bill 1100 February 4, the Senate is deliberately not officially transmitting the bill to the Governor for his action yet to allow union and other pressure to build against Gov. Wolf’s announced plans to veto the bill.]

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[Posted: February 12, 2020]

2/17/2020