Pennsylvanians who work in the controversial fracking industry are confident the industry will endure, no matter who wins the White House in November’s presidential election.
With an eye firmly on winning over voters in the gas-rich battleground state, both Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Kamala Harris are pledging support for the hydraulic fracturing industry.
But Trump’s consistently strong support for the practice — and Harris’ past opposition to it — led some voters in the largely rural Republican Washington county to conclude that the former president would be better off.
“I absolutely love Trump, but I think he’s very controversial,” said Jennifer McIntyre, a 47-year-old sales and operations representative for Keystone Clearwater Solutions, which provides water transportation services for the fracking industry.
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McIntyre, who is active in the local Washington County Republican party, told AFP she believed the former president was “incredibly pro-oil and gas” and that Democrats both state and national have regulations that make it difficult for the industry to succeed.
“I think sometimes these regulations aren’t necessarily appropriate,” McIntyre, 47, said in an interview at the company’s offices in the suburban business park of Southpointe, home to many fracking operations.
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Pennsylvania’s adoption of new fracking and drilling techniques in the first decade of the 21st century started a gas extraction boom that pushed the state’s annual production higher than Canada or Qatar.
There are currently more than 2,000 active so-called “unconventional” natural gas wells in Washington County and nearly 13,000 statewide, according to data from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.
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At Diversified Energy’s South Franklin Township site in southwestern Pennsylvania, seven 10-year-old wells hum quietly as they extract natural gas from the Marcellus Shale thousands of feet below.
The gas is first cleaned and then sold in a nearby pipeline, generating profits for Diversified, royalties for landowners and revenue for state and local government.
Together, those seven wells produce more than four million cubic feet of natural gas per day, on average, (about 113,000 cubic meters), Jason John Mounts, director of the company’s operations in southern Pennsylvania, told AFP during a browsing the site.
Asked who he supports in the 2024 presidential election, the 40-year-old, who grew up nearby, said he supports “whoever is going to lead our business.”
“In the end, it will take care of itself,” he said. “Every four years, he always takes care of himself.”
Unlike some of the bigger players in fracking, Diversified Energy doesn’t do the actual fracking – an expensive and dangerous process in which water, sand and chemicals are pumped thousands of feet underground at high pressure to create fractures in the background and release the gas trapped inside.
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Instead, it buys working wells from other companies once they come on stream and then fine-tunes them to increase production.
Diversified expects its existing well portfolio in the United States to continue producing natural gas for the next 50 to 75 years on average, according to the company’s vice president of investor relations, Douglas Chris.
“This will be part of our economy here for as long as we need it,” he told AFP.
Environmental concerns
Scientists, environmentalists and public health experts around the world have called for a ban on fracking, citing the health and climate impacts of the fracking phase of the extraction process and the long-term environmental damage caused by the continued burning of fossil fuels.
In response to these concerns, governments across Europe – including France and Germany – have either banned or suspended the procedure, as have several Canadian provinces and US states including New York.
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But in Pennsylvania, support for fracking has grown over the past decade, with 48 percent in favor and 44 percent against, according to a 2022 poll by the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion. When asked if fracking was good for the economy, 86% said yes.
Across the state, where coal was once the dominant energy source, fracking supported more than 120,000 jobs in 2022, paying an average of about $97,000, according to a study commissioned by the Marcellus Shale Coalition (MCS), a industrial trade group.
“These jobs are all over the spectrum,” MCS president David Callahan told AFP in an interview. “A lot of blue-collar jobs. But also a lot of white-collar jobs.”
Source: AFP