Biden’s stance against fossil fuels didn't turn away voters in Pennsylvania and other key states (original) (raw)
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This article presents survey results from 2013 to 2016 that show an increase in public awareness of fracking in Pennsylvania. It suggests that the increased awareness of fracking is due to the expansion of the industry in the Commonwealth, lowered gas prices, and increased political discussion following the 2014 gubernatorial race and that it is also part of a national trend. Results of a Pennsylvania survey and three national surveys show opinions split along gender and partisan lines.
The Extractive Industries and Society
It's been just over a decade since Unconventional Oil and Gas development began in earnest in the Marcellus Shale, a dense shale formation that, along with the deeper and larger Utica Shale, covers much of the mid-Atlantic United States. Since January 2008, approximately 15,939 wells have been drilled and fracked at 5674 sites across these shales. This decennial documents the pace, scale, and stages of actual development and takes stock of the social science on impacts to communities, people, policies, and culture. We have divided this article into the following sections that are categorized both geographically and thematically: Pennsylvania: Heart of the Marcellus Shale Play, focuses on the plethora of social science research that has occurred on impacts to Pennsylvania communities, health, economics, and agricultural production; West Virginia and Ohio: Legacies of Extraction discusses research on the overlapping historical legacies of extractive industries in the region and details results of original research examining perceived impacts to residents amid complex historical natural resource lineages; and New York: Fracking, Culture and Politics examines how the regulatory process to develop the Marcellus Shale affected both the state and nation's culture, politics, and policy as one of the most densely populated regions of the US came to grips with hosting the modern-day Oil and Gas Industry. We conclude with a discussion of emerging research opportunities and directions as a new generation of social scientists document future development in the Marcellus and Utica Shales. This decennial documents the pace, scale, and stages of actual development and takes stock of the social science on impacts to communities, people, policies, and culture. We have divided this article into the following sections that are categorized both geographically and thematically: Pennsylvania: Heart of the Marcellus Shale Play, focuses on the plethora of social science research that has occurred on impacts to Pennsylvania communities, health, economics, and agricultural production; West Virginia and Ohio: Legacies of Extraction discusses research on the overlapping historical legacies of extractive industries in the region and details results of original research examining perceived impacts to residents amid complex historical natural resource lineages; and New York: Fracking, Culture and Politics examines how the regulatory process to develop the Marcellus Shale affected both the
2014
Overall we found a community unprepared for the sudden overwhelming presence of the industry, with few tools to manage, let alone plan for, growth and change. One official argued that the industry "parachuted in and we chased them around. " That sentiment was repeated by many of the officials we interviewed. The benefits came with costs and impacts, with demonstrable changes in a number of areas: Employment grew in drilling-related sectors. Employment in natural resources and mining, although a small share of the overall economy, grew by 376% between 2005 and 2012. Overall employment grew by 4.7% during this period, while employment statewide increased by only 0.5%. Unemployment fell, for a time. Tioga County unemployment dipped below the state average between 2010 and 2012, the height of the boom, and industry employment helped cushion county residents from the worst effects of the Great Recession. The industry moved on, and unemployment grew, once again rising above the state as a whole. Residents benefited economically. Income earned by Tioga County residents from higher rents, signing bonuses, and royalties grew between 2005
Public Perceptions of Shale Gas Extraction and Hydraulic Fracturing in New York and Pennsylvania
Consumer Social Responsibility eJournal, 2014
The Marcellus Shale play in the northeastern corner of the United States holds one of the most robust deposits of natural gas in North America. Stretching from Virginia and West Virginia northward to central New York State, the Marcellus Shale deposit contains an estimated 141 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. While the deposit is a unified geographic feature, it lies beneath numerous political jurisdictions, including at least some portion of nine states and one Canadian province. With little federal intervention in the regulation of natural gas extraction from shale due to oil and gas industry exemptions in various statutes, state governments retain a primary role in deciding whether or not drilling occurs and, if so, what regulatory and taxation policies are adopted.This situation has created striking differences in the policy approaches that states have adopted toward energy policy throughout the Marcellus Shale region and around the United States. But perhaps the most extreme...
the Costs and Benefits of Natural Gas Development in Greene County, Pennsylvania: A Case Study
2014
Located in the southwestern corner of Pennsylvania, Greene County is no stranger to extractive industries, with a long history of coal mining, conventional gas drilling, and, most recently, unconventional gas drilling. Greene County had more than 500 unconventional gas wells drilled between 2006 and 2012 (nearly one gas well per square mile), 8% of the state total. This "modern gold rush" has brought with it both benefits and costs. This report documents the impacts that gas drilling has had on the county economy, roads, housing, social services, schools, and hospitals. The report is part of a larger Multi-State Shale Research Collaborative examination of the social costs of gas drilling in rural communities (other case studies focus on Tioga County, Pennsylvania, Carroll County, Ohio, and Wetzel County, West Virginia). Interviews were conducted with local officials and experts to understand how gas drilling has impacted Greene County communities, services, and local government. We supplemented qualitative interviews with data collection and analysis where possible. What did our research reveal? Greene County enjoyed some of the promised benefits of gas development, but those benefits came with costs to individuals and the community. The county experienced a significant increase in jobs, new income for residents, and increased sales activity for local businesses. At the same time, industry growth increased heavy truck traffic, safety concerns, and road damage; made housing hard to find and increased rents; and stressed social services, police, and local officials, all of which played catch up after the sudden spike in activity. Our findings: • An influx of out-of-state oil and gas workers drove up rents and further exacerbated an already existing housing shortage in the county. Rents, stagnant in the rest of Pennsylvania during and after the recession, increased by 7% to 12% (at the 20th, 50th, and 80th percentile of the rental cost distribution), with the biggest hike at the higher end of the market. Anecdotal reports claimed much higher increases-a doubling or tripling of rents-in specific cases. Higher rents benefited landlords but put a financial strain on renters, including low-income seniors on fixed incomes. For some county residents, higher rents were cushioned by higher incomes; indicative of this, the share of county residents paying more than 30% of their income in rent rose by less in Greene County (14%) during the drilling boom, a period of recession and slow recovery nationally, than over the same period in the rest of Pennsylvania (30%). • The shortage of affordable housing exacerbated by the oil and gas boom led to more children being split from parents and higher demand for foster care services. Some low-income families unable to secure adequate housing were separated, and children were put into the foster care system. Since 2009-10, the number of children in foster care due to "inadequate housing" has been between 30% and 40%, compared to 15% right before the boom began (in 2008-09). The increased cost of foster care has put a financial strain on Greene County Human Services. I. Executive Summary 2 MEASURING THE COSTS AND BENEFITS OF NATURAL GAS DEVELOPMENT IN GREENE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA: A CASE STUDY • Crime increased in conjunction with drilling, according to interviews, and data for Cumberland Township, the municipality with the largest number of drilling permits from 2006-12, and data over a longer period for Greene County. The township received nearly double the number of calls in 2011 (3,086) compared to 2008 (1,549), with a small drop off in 2012. Pennsylvania State Police data show a 31% increase in "serious crimes" in Greene County from 1999-2001 to 2010-12, compared to a 6% decline statewide. • Greene County's high school drop-out rate rose above the statewide average during the height of the gas boom (2009-2012). Anecdotal evidence suggests that some high school students dropped out of school to take advantage of new, higher-paying industry jobs in the county. Social service staff reported seeing more young men without high school diplomas seeking services because they have been recently laid off by companies moving elsewhere. • Emergency room visits to Greene's one hospital increased by more than 50% from the first part of the 2000s to 2010-12. A hospital official said this resulted not from drilling but from a 2005 hospital takeover by a for-profit corporation that improved services and the hospital's reputation. Another local health expert said that anywhere from one-third to two-thirds of the increase could be the result of the health and safety impacts of drilling. Across the board, it is clear that the county was unprepared for the impacts of drilling and had few tools available to manage the boom. Almost all local sources perceived drilling to have come out of nowhere with only a short lag time from the arrival of the land men to intense extraction activity. The activity, and the impacts, were on multiple fronts, affecting different county agencies and various municipalities simultaneously. The cumulative impact was, at times, overwhelming to the local officials and human service professionals on the front lines. For areas yet to experience a shale extraction boom, a clear lesson from Greene County is that more must be done by states and localities to prepare and respond better-to anticipate impacts, to have tools in place to avoid or mitigate impacts, to receive advanced and regular information from drillers on their plans, and to access resources to address infrastructure and human service needs in a predictable and timely way. An untold part of the Greene County story concerns the future. The county's history of extraction has left behind a legacy of environmental damage and poverty. Acknowledging its promising economic beginning, the growth in shale gas development makes the county more dependent on resource extraction, and vulnerable to a decline as swift as its rise. "Every program I have is impacted by housing-foster, drug and alcohol, disability, mental health."