May 8, 2018 2 min read

After the shuttering of the steel industry and the subsequent decline of the manufacturing sector, we saw firsthand families struggle to make ends meet. Thousands left the state. But the development of our state’s resources in recent years has fueled a resurgence from Washington to Wilkes-Barre and across Pennsylvania.

To keep this going, policymakers and communities need to embrace every opportunity to support continued energy production and infrastructure. The availability and cost of energy affect every sector and business, and the jobs they create.

Pennsylvania’s industrial sector depends on energy as a feedstock, consuming over 36 percent of all energy used statewide. The transportation, agriculture, food processing, mining, tourism, steel and chemical sectors are all large energy-consuming industries whose production or operational expenses fluctuate with the cost of local energy, greatly influencing the livelihoods of countless workers and families here and in outlying states.

Local production also affects how much we pay in utility costs. In July 2017, state residents paid above the national average of the retail price for electricity. Similar price spikes happened again this winter following our record cold snap. Imagine being one of the 1.6 million here who depends on food stamps. They have little room in their razor-thin budgets for unnecessarily high energy costs.

That’s why we need responsible policies that promote the development and safe transportation of our energy resources. That includes supporting new facilities like the Shell cracker plant near Monaca, which is projected to employ roughly 6,000-plus workers, and job-creating infrastructure expansion projects like the Mariner 2 and PennEast pipelines.

It also means denying requests for fracking bans and saying no to a severance tax on local production, all of which would kill jobs and force industry to make tough decisions about working in Pennsylvania and consider less environmentally safe ways to produce and transport our energy. Thanks to improved tools, procedures, innovations, and regulations, we can help the U.S. continue growing in its role as a world leader in energy conservation and efficiency.

In an energy-abundant region like ours, which will supply 37 percent of the nation’s natural gas production by 2040, how can we not seize the opportunity to lessen the financial burdens of families and businesses in our state and put more Pennsylvanians back to work?

Jim Kunz

Business manager of Operating Engineers Local 66