So let’s get this straight: On June 25, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro unveiled a massive grand jury report into the dangers of the fracking industry. The two-year investigation documents a range of health problems — headaches, asthma spikes, children waking up with bloody noses.
The report also shows, in painstaking detail, how state regulators failed to protect our health and safety, bowing to the power of an industry with a direct line to the most powerful politicians in Pennsylvania.
It is, in short, a searing indictment of a dangerous industry and a feckless government. And how did our leaders respond to these stunning revelations: Urgent hearings on the threats created by drilling companies? Suspending new permits?
Not quite. In July, Gov. Wolf made a deal that hands out massive tax breaks to petrochemical companies, with the goal of increasing the amount of fracking being done in Pennsylvania. For those of us who have seen the harms of fracking firsthand, this was one more slap in the face.
The bill in question, which was included as an amendment to unrelated legislation, gives companies that use fracked gas produced here tax breaks valued at over $650 million over 25 years. It is similar to HB 1100, legislation that Wolf vetoed earlier this year. But while that package was subjected to public debate and scrutiny, this deal was passed in a hurry and signed into law.
There’s a reason for secrecy. The fracking industry is in serious trouble: They have been producing too much gas to turn a profit and Wall Street has stopped shoveling money to companies with huge debt loads. But instead of seeing the writing on the wall, Gov. Wolf has thrown a lifeline to an industry that poses a threat to our safety, our health and our climate — and we’ll all be picking up the tab.
They will tell you that this is all about creating jobs. But granting multimillion-dollar tax breaks to billion-dollar corporations is a lousy, expensive way to put people to work. The $1.6 billion handout to Shell to build its petrochemical plant in Beaver County is considered the model for this legislation — all to create just 600 permanent jobs. That amounts to $3 million tax break per job.
Did Shell really need that gift to put people to work? Of course not. And now, with communities hurting from the pandemic, the Wolf Administration went back to the same playbook, propping up frackers at the expense of the rest of us.
This is unconscionable. The only proper response to the grand jury investigation would be an immediate halt to all new fracking permits and a move to shut down existing operations.
Reading the heartbreaking stories recounted in the grand jury investigation will make you livid: Parents keeping their kids indoors because the air outside will make them sick. Farmers watching animals suddenly die due to unknown causes. Families being told that their water that was contaminated by drilling is safe to drink.
And then there are the stories that are still unfolding, like the ones you hear from the parents who have lost children due to outbreaks of rare cancers in heavily fracked areas of southwestern Pennsylvania.
These folks were failed by their government once, and it’s happening again. Instead of reining in the industry that is making them sick, Gov. Wolf and leaders from both parties decided to hand out corporate tax breaks that will inevitably make more people sick, contaminate more water and pollute more communities.
It’s difficult to find the right words to describe the abominable failure of these people to do anything at all to protect the people of Pennsylvania.
Megan McDonough is the Pennsylvania organizing manager for Food & Water Action, a national environmental advocacy group.
