PennFuture Wants Pennsylvanians to Live Off Sparkles of Sunshine and the Whispering Wind

No Pennsylvania DEP Secretary did more to sell out the Commonwealth than Patrick McDonnell. Immediately after departing his job at the Department of Environmental Protection he joined Citizens for Pennsylvania Future “(PennFuture”) as its leader. Since then, he has led the effort there to put out piles of drivel attacking the oil and gas industry he once regulated while promoting patently ridiculous green energy schemes.

The latest in PennFuture drivel is a report titled “Economic Policy Is Environmental - Prioritizing Environmental Progress in Pennsylvania’s Department of Community and Economic Development.” Before quoting the worst parts, understand one thing: PennFuture is the voice of Pennsylvania elites, namely the Heinz and Haas families. The Heinz family funds PennFuture through its tax-exempt private foundation known as the Heinz Endowments (John Kerry’s wife and her children from her earlier marriage to Senator John Heinz). The Haas family, heirs to a chemical fortune, does the same through the William Penn Foundation. They regularly throw money at PennFuture and it does their bidding.

Consider this from the Executive Summary:

Pennsylvania must reconsider how it leverages its economic development tools. The Department of Community and Economic Development (the “Department” or “DCED”) drives investments designed to shape the Commonwealth’s economy for decades, and therefore plays a critical role in facilitating the transition to a decarbonized economy…

First, to take advantage of its strengths, the Department must be reformed and its resources redirected toward industries that support the future of our workforce, communities, and public health, with an eye towards the most vulnerable. Establishing Climate Accountability Measures within its funding structure for program priorities and reshaping the Pennsylvania’s Energy Economy program would provide the necessary structure to prioritize clean energy investments and decarbonization efforts.

Second, the Department must leverage its private sector influence through its strategic collaborations with public and private partnerships to facilitate Pennsylvania’s transition to a modern and equitable economy, via an aggressive sector-based climate strategy. Pushing to reform Team PA as a champion for Pennsylvania’s transition to a decarbonized and diversified economy is the first step, beginning with the intentional inclusion of environmental groups on its private sector board of directors.

Subsequently, in order to bolster Team PA’s new mission, the state must create an interagency Clean Energy Working Group, which would develop a comprehensive plan that supports environmental justice and energy communities through the strategic deployment of decarbonization, energy efficiency, and renewable energy resources and infrastructure in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

This sort of language is nothing more than pseudo-academic double-speak and propaganda, which is common in all such documents. It is intended to include, but obscure, the fact PennFuture — Pennsylvania's elites — want nothing less than a takeover of the Commonwealth's Department of Community and Economic Development to turn it into nothing less than a climate grifting tool.

And, what does the following mean?

The gas industry received unprecedented levels of taxpayer subsidies alongside lax federal and state regulations and enforcement.

What subsidies? Those Shell received for its cracker plant? Well, those are no different than what an Amazon facility or any other huge industrial project might get. Personally, I'm against all subsidies, but don't tell me fossil fuel production itself depends on them. Also, is PennFuture suggesting renewables haven’t been heavily subsidized for four decades? And, without those subsidies, renewables would collapse in a heap. They're losers and wholly depend on subsidies. Moreover, attracting more of those subsidies is the entire point of this phony report.

Then, there is this:

For the first time in nearly twenty years, Pennsylvania’s Governor produced a comprehensive, state-wide economic development plan. Released in February 2024, Governor Shapiro’s administration unveiled PA Gets It Done: A Ten-Year Strategic Plan for Economic Development in Pennsylvania (2024- 2033), and while the plan includes many progressive components, such as broad-based investments in education, innovation, workforce development, outdoor recreation, and agriculture, its energy strategy continues to rely almost exclusively on fossil fuels.

As currently written, the plan would deter the development of a clean energy economy for the Commonwealth, and in turn, stagnate economic progress, leaving Pennsylvania to trail behind many other industrial states in the nation that are embracing the opportunities that new clean tech and clean energy investments provide. The approach to energy outlined in PA Gets It Done will compromise Pennsylvania’s long-term economic goals by coupling it to the volatile short-term economic interests of the fossil fuel industry.

Pennsylvania is both one of the top energy-producing states (second only to Texas) and one of the largest emitters of greenhouse gas emissions in the nation. Accordingly, this new, long-term economic development strategy is one of the most consequential environmental decisions that this administration will make during its tenure serving the Commonwealth.

So, in this instance, we’re told Pennsylvania is on a roll as the No. 2 producer of natural gas in the country, but it's all bad because carbon dioxide is a threat, and we should be more like California or New York, both of which being abandoned in a rush to places such as Texas. The premise, that CO2 is a threat, and the conclusion, that we should throw everything to accept the premise, is pure tunnel vision, the kind they accuse us of having.

Finally, there are the recommendations:

In the face of the national transition to renewable energy and decarbonization, the state of Pennsylvania must coordinate the deployment of available economic resources to proactively transform and stabilize its economy to keep pace. This economic mobilization will regenerate and revitalize the state of play for the Commonwealth by financing affordable solutions, supporting workers, and diversifying local economies.

Decarbonizing the industrial sector can bolster local economies by shifting financial resources away from fossil fuels to instead prioritize high-growth sectors like clean energy development and deployment, material recycling, retrofitting aging industrial buildings, and energy efficiency. What is needed now is bold leadership that can manage the challenge instead of shy away from it, so that the state’s economy is prepared for the future that lies ahead. This is where DCED comes in…

Establish Climate Accountability Measures within the Department’s funding structure for program priorities. These new measures would institute green building and energy efficiency standards for large new projects, encourage the deployment of on-site renewables, and track the carbon impacts of projects. The DCED should explicitly include the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and the pursuit of a sustainable economy as one of the Department’s policy priorities. In addition, DCED should adopt climate goals as part of its financing strategies.

It’s just as I indicated above. The entire report is all about steering still more subsidies to uneconomical green energy which is completely distorting the markets already, while using the Shell cracker plant as a foil to suggest we are doing what they are doing; grifting off ratepayers and taxpayers. Ask yourself a question. Would a PennFuture running the Commonwealth be willing to give up renewables subsidies if Shell were forced to give back its subsidies? No way, of course. Nor would PennFuture sacrifice renewables to do unsubsidized emission-less nuclear energy instead. Indeed, nuclear energy gets no attention in this report, which says it all.

No, Patsy McDonnell, PennFuture and the elites behind it want Pennsylvanians to live off sparkles of sunshine and the whispering wind because that’s where the grift is.

#Pennsylvania #DCED #CO2 #Climate #GlobalWarming #PennFuture #Heinz #Haas #Elites