{"id":224067,"date":"2021-04-10T15:13:50","date_gmt":"2021-04-10T12:13:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/pa-town-saved-by-fracking-fears-biden-will-kill-its-prosperity\/"},"modified":"2021-04-10T15:13:50","modified_gmt":"2021-04-10T12:13:50","slug":"pa-town-saved-by-fracking-fears-biden-will-kill-its-prosperity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/pa-town-saved-by-fracking-fears-biden-will-kill-its-prosperity\/","title":{"rendered":"#PA town saved by fracking fears Biden will kill its prosperity"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#PA town saved by fracking fears Biden will kill its prosperity<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

\n

CANONSBURG, PA. \u2014 Thirty years ago, Jason Capp<\/a>s 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.<\/p>\n

In 1987, when Capps graduated from high school, the unemployment rate was at a staggering 12 percent<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy ability to carve out a future here was limited at best, impossible at worst,\u201d he said. \u201cSo I left.\u201d<\/p>\n

Capps, 51, became a chef and travel<\/a>ed 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.<\/p>\n

Eventually, Capps moved back to his hometown and, in 2006, he founded Bella Sera \u2014 a successful event space resembling a grand Tuscan villa \u2014 which he still owns and operates.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was this amazing trickle effect, this positive economic evolution that I saw happening in a place where nothing ever happened,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For decades, geologists knew Devonian black shale existed in this region, but few thought it would be a major source of natural gas, mainly because the supply was thought to be too low.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That all changed in 2003 when energy company Range Resources experimented with horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing \u2014 a new technique commonly called \u201cfracking\u201d \u2014 which flushes large volumes of high-pressure water, sand and chemicals into the ground, forcing trapped gas to escape into a well.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2004, the first commercially viable well was drilled, attracting multiple oil and gas producers and suppliers to the region. The town\u2019s Southpointe industrial park has since grown to include a breathtaking campus of homes, a championship golf course designed by Arthur Hills, and an executive business park where multiple Fortune 500 companies are based.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Joe
Joe Biden campaigned hard to win Pennsylvania, but many energy workers in the state are worried his climate change policies will hurt their livelihood.<\/figcaption>
Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIn 2008 is when it really started to turn up,\u201d said Jeff Kotula, president of the county Chamber of Commerce. \u201cOver 20,000 people work here every day, thousands also live, golf or stay at the hotels.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Like the men and women who built coal and steel and glass in this region 100 years ago, Kotula and Capps have prospered because of the natural resources under their feet. But unlike their forebears, they now worry that the politics of environmental justice will kill their region\u2019s newfound prosperity.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Climate justice activists say fracking contributes to climate change. Two of the most vocal anti-fracking members of Congress, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders, introduced companion bills last year to end the practice nationwide. Ocasio-Cortez said in her release, \u201cThe science<\/a> 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\u2019 health.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

In January, newly sworn-in President Joe Biden signed several executive orders that banned or halted fracking on federal lands. With the stroke of a pen, people from Louisiana to South Dakota to New Mexico saw their livelihoods canceled. While he has so far held his powder on the prohibition of fracking on non-federal lands (and the practice still goes on in Canonsburg), Biden\u2019s statements that the climate crisis will be at the center of his policy-making has locals and business owners worried.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Jeff
Jeff Kotula says fracking supports many other businesses.<\/figcaption>
Justin Merriman for NY Post<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Rodney Wilson, who is vice president of business development at energy company CNX in Canonsburg, dismisses critics\u2019 claims on fracking and argues that it has actually helped the environment, because natural gas is a clean-burning fossil fuel that reduces our reliance<\/a> on coal for electricity.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe statistics speak pretty clearly. If you look at Pennsylvania, in the past 12 years that natural gas was on the grid,\u201d and grew to comprise more than one-third of the electricity supply, \u201cCO2 intensity has been reduced by 39 percent in the state,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

An American Petroleum Institute study shows the oil and gas industry contributes $34.7 billion<\/a> to Pennsylvania\u2019s economy, with more than 1,347 businesses spread across the entire state as part of the larger supply chain. Pennsylvania would lose as many as 600,000 jobs if fracking is banned \u2014 and the state GDP would take a $261\u2009billion hit, according to a report<\/a> from the US Chamber of Commerce.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sitting in his Southpointe office, CNX CEO Nick Deiuliis is dressed more like a dad ready to take his kid to soccer practice rather than a Fortune 500 exec.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Jason
Jason Capps (right) returned to Canonsburg to open a wedding venue. The town in western Pennsylvania has boomed in the 21st Century \u2014 mainly because of fracking.<\/figcaption>
Justin Merriman for NY Post; NY Post map by Mike Guillen<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Deiuliis, 52, calls what happened here nothing short of a miracle. He is worried that climate justice forces will undo all this success \u2014 and hurt not just welders, tradesmen and pipefitters, but also the hospitality industry, school districts and community centers that have soared because of the region\u2019s increased tax base.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAs 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,\u201d said Deiuliis.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite all these wonderful things that we\u2019re doing \u2026 decision-makers and elites are basically working night and day to deny you \u2026 your future. That is something that frankly should not be taken lightly,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Deiuliis said he rarely engages in political battles. But he believes he must take a stand before a ban on fracking goes from a quip on the campaign trail to reality.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Deiuliis said he has \u201can ethical and moral responsibility as a business leader to speak up to defend the employees, to keep their families going with a high quality of life, to help the region that I am from and that we operate within,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cTo not do that, it\u2019s a moral failing. We cannot allow the hammer to drop here again.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Salena Zito is the author of \u201cThe Great Revolt: Inside the Populist Coalition Reshaping American Politics<\/a>.\u201d<\/em>\n <\/div>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#PA town saved by fracking fears Biden will kill its prosperity” CANONSBURG, PA. \u2014 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…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":224068,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/04\/pennsylvania-zito.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[77189,101532,77143,70492,71429,991],"class_list":["post-224067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-policies","tag-4-10-21","tag-climate","tag-federal-government","tag-fracking","tag-joe-biden"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224067\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}