State Rep. Sara Innamorato’s Feb. 13 op-ed “Risk vs. Profits,” concerning the Pennsylvania Legislature’s passage of House Bill 1100, is a clear statement of why our region needs to move on from fossil fuels.
Our senators and representatives in Harrisburg voted to support the building of new cracker plants to the tune of $22 million in public dollars per plant, buying the petrochemical industry’s claim that we need its cracker plants, frack wells, cryogenic facilities, pipelines and other related installations because we need the jobs.
But if we need jobs, then why do we pay our taxpayer dollars to an industry that doesn’t supply them? The cracker plant under construction in Beaver County will create a maximum of 600 permanent jobs. But clean energy industries employ many more workers. In 2019, we had more than 68,000 energy efficiency jobs across the state.
These are the people who insulate our homes, replace our leaky windows and maintain our furnaces, and they work in small, locally oriented businesses. In all the clean energy designations, including energy efficiency, solar energy, wind energy, energy storage, grid modernization, renewable energy and clean vehicles, there were over 90,000 jobs.
And that was 2019: These clean energy sectors are growing and have plenty of room for further growth all across the state.
Our legislators have let us down by pouring our taxpayer dollars into the petrochemical industry, and they have missed a chance to bring clean jobs to Pennsylvania.
NORA JOHNSON
Squirrel Hill
First Published: February 20, 2020, 5:00 a.m.
