Fracking and Cracking: Pennsylvania's Misguided Plan for Prosperity

You may not know it, but Pennsylvania is the second leading producer of natural gas in the United States with several of the top producing counties located in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

Pennsylvania has a long legacy of extracting fossil fuels, beginning in 1859 with the first oil well ever drilled in the United States. Today, the Commonwealth is home to more than 80,000 conventional oil and gas wells and about 10,651 active unconventional gas wells, according to Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection.

The Keystone State is on its way to becoming a global leader in natural gas production, which the petrochemical industry is following closely. The natural gas extracted in Pennsylvania is exported around the world, from Europe to Japan. In 2017, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration counted an estimated 92,407 miles of pipeline in Pennsylvania.

A Handout?

Despite the prominence and profits of the fossil fuel extraction industry in Pennsylvania, legislators in Harrisburg introduced a package of bills known as "Energize PA” to help further attract the industry. Many of these bills contained tax breaks, regulatory rollbacks, and other incentives in an effort to further cement the fracked gas and petrochemical industries in Pennsylvania.

One of the bills in the Energize Package, House Bill 1100, was passed by the General Assembly on February 4. This bill provides enormous subsidies to fracking companies and companies that produce products from fracked gas. Pennsylvania is the only state where fracking occurs that does not have a severance tax. And to make matters worse, now the state wants to write a blank check to an industry that is also asking for rollbacks on important environmental protections.

Fracking Isn’t Alone

Natural gas extraction and pipelines are not the only burgeoning dirty industry in Pennsylvania. Royal Dutch Shell is building a massive ethane “cracker” plant in Beaver County, near Pittsburgh. These plants, which are typically found along the Gulf Coast, take ethane derived from natural gas and heat it—or "crack" it—at extreme temperatures to produce polyethylene, which is then used to create plastic pellets. When it becomes operational later this year, Shell’s plant will also utilize a 97-mile pipeline that will feed up to 107,000 barrels of ethane to the plant on a daily basis. This cracker plant is the first of its kind in Appalachia and, if industry gets its way, it likely won't be the last.

Ultimately, the plant will emit 2.2 million tons of carbon dioxide per year—the equivalent to putting nearly a half million more cars on local roads annually. ExxonMobil is also scouting land in southwestern Pennsylvania while exploring the possibility of building its own ethane cracker facility in the region.

These plants, and the pipelines and fracking wells that are needed to fuel them, are part of the so-called "petrochemical buildout" that is threatening Appalachia and all of Pennsylvania. While most of this activity has been concentrated in western Pennsylvania, a movement is underway to bring similar massive cracker plants to northeastern Pennsylvania, which is within the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

In addition, the fossil fuel industry is building Liquefied Natural Gas facilities, or LNG, to cool the gas into a liquid form making it easier to ship internationally. In the Chesapeake Bay watershed, New Fortress Energy is building an enormous LNG facility in Wyalusing, Bradford County.

Fighting Back

On March 9, more than 150 individuals representing 35 co-sponsor organizations—including members of the Choose Clean Water Coalition—stood with PennFuture at a rally in the Capitol rotunda, urging Governor Tom Wolf to veto House Bill 1100.

During that rally, two members of the General Assembly—one a state representative, the other a state senator—stood alongside five environmental leaders and helped promote a vision that includes a clean energy economy that doesn't rely on heavy industry for prosperity.

To add insult to injury, House Bill 1100 is moving its way through the legislature at a time when that same legislature is slashing the budgets of many conservation and environmental protection agencies. Many of these agencies are struggling to keep up with permits, planning, and enforcement. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, for example, is staffed at 1994 levels and has seen its funding cut by 30 percent since 2002.

On March 27, Governor Wolf upheld his promise to veto this open-ended taxpayer subsidy to the natural gas and petrochemical industries. However, the Legislature has until November 30 to override the veto.

What Pennsylvania does in the next few months could drastically change the environment, economy and geography for millions of people, for decades to come. Clean water advocacy groups have a long road ahead to protect the existing safeguards and funding critical to protecting our waterways. The combined efforts of groups such as the Choose Clean Water Coalition and Coalition for the Delaware River Watershed provide a critical voice for the clean water advocacy work in Pennsylvania.

To join us in this critical work protecting local waterways from dirty energy industries throughout Pennsylvania and the entire Chesapeake Bay watershed, consider joining our Energy Workgroup! Contact the Coalition’s Mariah Davis at davism@nwf.org for more information.

Renee Reber is the Campaign Manager for Watershed Advocacy at PennFuture and Pennsylvania State Lead for the Choose Clean Water Coalition