Media Contact:
Justin Wasser, 202-887-1872 x136, jwasser@earthworks.org
Background: Governor Tom Wolf signed HB732 into law providing for $26.7M in tax credits for oil and gas petrochemical expansion in Pennsylvania every year over 25 years beginning in 2024.
Statement of Earthworks Pennsylvania and Ohio Field Advocate Leann Leiter:
“With the swipe of a pen, and in a stunning reversal of his position just a few weeks ago, Governor Wolf has put the health of more Pennsylvanians in jeopardy and made meeting his climate promises next to impossible. It is reckless and irresponsible to give nearly $670M taxpayer dollars to oil and gas petrochemical companies during difficult economic times and amid a climate crisis.
“Across Appalachia, fossil fuel projects are failing because they no longer make economic sense. The Pennsylvania Attorney General has found widespread harm from this industry, and Earthworks’ own three-year investigation, released today, shows the failures of this administration to provide meaningful industry oversight.
“Yet instead of listening to the experts and following science as he has done with the COVID pandemic, Governor Wolf chose political expediency. Pennsylvania needs a climate leader willing to forge a far better path forward for workers and residents across the commonwealth by investing in clean energy. Today, Governor Wolf gave us an act of climate contradiction.”
FOR MORE INFORMATION
- Report released today by Earthworks: Loud and Clear: what public regulation complaints reveal about Pennsylvania’s oversight of oil and gas pollution and whom it serves.
- Opinion on Governor Wolf’s climate choice by Earthworks’ Nadia Steinzor published this week in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
- Optical Gas Images (OGI) of oil and gas methane and health hazardous air pollution in Pennsylvania, taken by staff Certified Thermographers.
- PA Clean Jobs report and the US Energy Employment PA report.
