Governor Josh Shapiro proclaims that he’s “sick and tired of losing to friggin’ Ohio.” Yet when it comes to advancing Pennsylvania’s natural gas industry – which should be a cornerstone of the state’s energy and economic strategy – too many of our elected officials are actively pushing policies that send investment and jobs right there.

Pennsylvania isn’t just losing to Ohio; we’re falling behind West Virginia, Texas, Tennessee, South Carolina, Indiana, and Georgia. Each of these states is slated to build more new natural gas power generation than Pennsylvania in the coming years. The reason is simple: Pennsylvania policies and challenging business and regulatory environment are driving investment elsewhere.

Consider these realities:

Ignoring the Looming Reliability Crisis

  • The reliability threats to our electric grid are real and growing. Instead of prioritizing policies that encourage the development of new baseload power generation, to ensure a stable energy supply, advocates continue to advance a tax on generation and artificially crowd out the market for new natural gas power by imposing mandates on utilities and competitive suppliers to purchase unreliable wind and solar energy.
  • The impact is clear: Pennsylvania has not sited a new natural gas facility in years. Despite a $13 billion surge in natural gas power generation investment in the early shale revolution days, no new plants have been announced in more than a half decade. Why? In large part, because former Governor Wolf’s entry into the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) has created a chilling effect on new investment.
    • Graveyard of Opportunities Lost: The consequences of these misguided policies are visible in the $3B+ string of canceled power plant projects across the state: Renovo Energy Center (Clinton County), Elizabeth Township (Allegheny County), and the Beech Hollow Power Plant (Washington County). Each of these projects represented jobs – particularly among the building trades – tax revenue, and grid reliability all lost due to state inaction and hostility toward natural gas.
  • Meanwhile, anti-energy activist groups like PennFuture and Clean Air Council exploit legal loopholes to stall or kill projects, which turns investment in reliable, baseload power generation elsewhere.

Policy Proposals Drive Investment Away

  • The proposed Pennsylvania Reliable Energy Sustainability Standard (PRESS) plan doubles down on bad policy. If enacted, the plan would micromanage the state’s electric portfolio, guaranteeing nearly 82% of this market to sources other than natural gas.  Natural gas, which currently provides about 60% of the electricity that Pennsylvanians use, would be sidelined in favor of more expensive, unproven and unreliable energy sources that threaten the stability of our grid – and put Pennsylvania lives at risk.
  • Additionally, the Pennsylvania Climate Emissions Reduction Act (PACER) imposes new taxes on power generation, further driving investment in new plants to neighboring states that welcome the jobs that come with it. Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman has warned that these policies will drive electricity costs up by nearly half a billion dollars per year – a burden that will fall directly on Pennsylvania residents and businesses.
  • The numbers are clear: despite Pennsylvania being the second largest natural gas producer in the nation, investors are flocking to neighboring states like Ohio and West Virginia.

The Stakes for Pennsylvania’s Future

  • Poor policy choices are actively sidelining Pennsylvania’s most abundant and reliable energy resource. Self-inflicted wounds like these simply inject uncertainty into the market and forces energy producers to look elsewhere. The result? A weaker grid, higher costs, and fewer jobs.
  • Fortunately, advocates for Pennsylvania energy are proposing commonsense solutions. “To maintain our position as the energy powerhouse of the mid-Atlantic and meet growing energy demands, we need to be investing in new generation capacity now,” Senator Gene Yaw, chair of the Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee, recently noted. Senator Yaw has announced a series of legislative proposals to spur new investment in power generation, including the proposed Grid Stabilization and Security Act.
    • “Natural gas must be the fundamental underpinning of any reasonable Pennsylvania energy policy,” MSC president Welty said last month. “Policies that promote barriers to continued development, add further unpredictability, inefficiencies, and costs that ultimately burden the consumer, are a disservice to the Commonwealth and threaten the long-term reliability of the electric grid.”

Pennsylvania policymakers must work together – across the partisan aisle – to address the looming energy reliability crisis and ensure that Pennsylvania can take advantage of the resources right beneath our feet. If we don’t, Pennsylvania will continue to lose out, while Ohio, West Virginia and others capitalize on our missed opportunities.