In a town near Pittsburgh, where the coal mines were dying and the glass, steel, and manufacturing industries were on their last legs, fracking was their savior. Now, Joe Biden‘s policies are once again threatening lives and livelihoods.
Fracking
The New York Post reports:
Thirty years ago, Jason Capps was a young man with ambition, but when he looked around this town near Pittsburgh, where he grew up, all he saw were opportunities slipping away. The coal mines where his father worked were dying; the glass, steel and manufacturing industries were on their last legs.
In 1987, when Capps graduated from high school, the unemployment rate was at a staggering 12 percent.
“My ability to carve out a future here was limited at best, impossible at worst,” he said. “So I left.”
Capps, 51, became a chef and traveled the country honing his skills. But then an unexpected rebirth happened here in Western Pennsylvania with the discovery of the Marcellus Shale, an ancient rock bed that offers an abundant source of natural gas.
Eventually, Capps moved back to his hometown and, in 2006, he founded Bella Sera — a successful event space resembling a grand Tuscan villa — which he still owns and operates.
“There was this amazing trickle effect, this positive economic evolution that I saw happening in a place where nothing ever happened,” he said.
Geologists had known for decades that Devonian black shale existed in the region, but most didn’t believe it could be a major source of natural gas, assuming that the supply was low. But all of that changed in 2003, when Range Resources, an energy company, began experimenting with horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, now commonly referred to as “fracking.” Fracking flushes large volumes of high-pressure water, sand and chemicals into the ground, forcing trapped gas to escape into a well.
After the process began to be used in the area, things started to look up for the small Pennsylvania town.
“In 2008 is when it really started to turn up. Over 20,000 people work here every day, thousands also live, golf or stay at the hotels,” said Jeff Kotula, president of the Washington County Chamber of Commerce in PA.
People like Kotula and Capps have prospered thanks to the business and wealth brought to their town by fracking, but they now fear the radical left-wing environmental policies that may soon be enacted by Joe Biden.
The Left’s Destructive Policies
New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who are two of the most vocal anti-fracking members of Congress, introduced companion bills last year to end fracking nationwide.
“The science is clear: fracking is a leading contributor to our climate emergency. It is destroying our land. It is destroying our water and it is wreaking havoc on our communities’ health,” AOC said in a press release.
Joe Biden is following their lead, as he signed several executive orders soon after being sworn in in January that banned or halted fracking on federal lands. These orders destroyed the livelihoods of people across the country.
Fracking Helped
Rodney Wilson, vice president of business development at energy company CNX in Canonsburg, has argued against claims that fracking is harmful. He believes that it has actually helped the environment, arguing that natural gas is a clean-burning fossil fuel, and stating that it reduces reliance on coal.
“The statistics speak pretty clearly. If you look at Pennsylvania, in the past 12 years that natural gas was on the grid,” and grew to comprise more than one-third of the electricity supply, “CO2 intensity has been reduced by 39 percent in the state,” Wilson said.
The Possible Damage
The oil and gas industry currently contributes approximately $34.7 billion to the economy of Pennsylvania, according to a study by the American Petroleum Institute. A report from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce shows that, if fracking is banned, the GDP in Pennsylvania would take a $261 billion hit, and the state would lose approximately 600,000 jobs.
CNX CEO Nick Deiuliis is concerned that the economic damage won’t be isolated to just the oil and gas industries. He believes that it will also negatively impact the hospitality industry, as well as school districts and community centers due to the loss of tax revenue.
“As exciting as the past 15 years have been for the region, you get very concerned about what the future holds for Canonsburg and for Western Pennsylvania,” said Deiuliis.
“Despite all these wonderful things that we’re doing … decision-makers and elites are basically working night and day to deny you … your future. That is something that frankly should not be taken lightly,” he said.
The Bottom Line
Joe Biden and the rest of the Democrat Party either don’t know, or don’t care that their radical policies will destroy possibly millions of jobs around the country. All they seem to care about is appeasing their increasingly radical base.
