| A Message from Our Executive Director |
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It has been a long couple of weeks in what has felt like a very long year. As we process the aftermath of the 2020 election, we are preparing to meet a new presidential administration and returning to face the everyday challenges present in our communities. Elections coverage is giving way to coverage of coronavirus vaccines and lame-duck sessions, but the difficult political questions haven’t gone away. Instead of wondering how people will vote and who will be our president, we are now asking what policies are viable in a divided government and whether we can make any progress toward addressing climate change, equity, and prosperity.
In this edition of our newsletter, we feature Advisory Council member Dr. Leslie Marshall, whose team at the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Sustainable Business has put forth a strategy for tackling climate change, social and environmental injustice, and economic crisis. This strategy–a Marshall Plan for Middle America–is supported by key partners the City of Pittsburgh, the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network, Steel Valley Authority, and the Heartland Capital Strategies Network. Dr. Marshall has worked internationally in Uganda and Lebanon and served as a consultant to the United Nations Development Programme and Innovations for Poverty Action, bringing a unique and valuable perspective to sustainable development in the Ohio River Valley.
We also highlight new work from Ohio River Valley Institute researchers, including an analysis of voting behavior and opinion research showing that fracking is unpopular in Pennsylvania, a discussion of election-related litigation and whether it will impact electoral outcomes, and a window into the (avoidable) low-wage future of the Ohio River Valley. |
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| Advisor’s Corner: Meet Advisory Council Member Leslie Marshall |
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“As we engage in the necessary work of transitioning our economy to one that is both more equitable and more sustainable, we are fortunate to have academic leaders like Dr. Marshall, whose research serves as a beacon to help guide local and regional policy decisions.”
– Joanne Kilgour, ORVI
Executive Director
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Leslie Marshall, Ph.D serves as the Associate Director of the Center for Sustainable Business in the Katz Graduate School of Business and College of Business Administration at the University of Pittsburgh, overseeing all aspects of the center’s programming. Her research focuses on how socio-economic class, ethnicity, and gender intersect to influence cooperation in groups and the implications for policymaking. Most recently, she served as Co-Principal Investigator, Project Manager, and Lead Author for the Marshall Plan for Middle America (MP4MA) Roadmap, a non-partisan, multi-sectoral research effort to envision a more equitable and sustainable regional economic future for the Ohio River Valley and Upper Appalachia.
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Fracking is Not Popular in Pennsylvania: Fracking critic Josh Shapiro outperformed Biden, especially in fracking counties, just as opinion research indicated.
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If you watched the presidential debates or listened to political advertisements in Pennsylvania, you might be forgiven for thinking that fracking enjoys strong support with voters. President Trump attacked Joe Biden vociferously and repeatedly (and falsely) for supporting a ban on the practice. Meanwhile, the Biden campaign hewed to a message on fracking that was both moderate and muddled. Yet a review of the evidence–from voters themselves as well as opinion research–simply does not support the view that fracking is popular with Pennsylvania voters, not even in conservative areas. To the contrary, there is good reason to believe that a stronger anti-fracking stance might have improved Biden’s fortunes in the Keystone State.
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Election 2020: Will Pending Litigation Impact Results in Pennsylvania?
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Even before Election Day, 2020 yielded more than double the number of election lawsuits in 2000, a contest that was ultimately decided by Justice Scalia and the Supreme Court of the United States. Accounting for cases filed both before and after the election, the Bush v. Gore era saw 196 election lawsuits, while in 2016, courts handled a total of 337 election-related cases. According to Stanford’s Healthy Elections Tracker, more than 500 cases have been filed in connection with the 2020 election, with fully 70 of those cases in the Ohio Valley states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Kentucky alone.
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As election officials and poll workers put in overtime hours to ensure that every vote is counted, the Trump Campaign, the Republican National Committee, and other Republican candidates for office have challenged how state and county election officials implemented aspects of Pennsylvania’s new vote-by-mail program. The country is ready to move forward, and although these legal cases and the questions they present have yet to be fully resolved, it is unlikely that the outcomes will change the overall result of the presidential election.
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Low-Wage Jobs Are The Future in The Ohio River Valley Unless We Make Change
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If policymakers at the state and federal level want to build a strong economy with good paying jobs in the Ohio River Valley region it will require raising wages, improving job quality standards, and increasing disposable income of workers. That’s because most new jobs in the Ohio River Valley are projected to pay median wages that are below a living wage. Boosting educational attainment will not be a cure-all for workers in the labor market of the future, as most new jobs will not require a post-secondary degree.
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The good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way. By building a new economy, with clean energy jobs, and supporting policies that boost incomes and lower household costs for workers and families it is possible to ensure more people can make ends meet and thrive.
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ORVI In The News
Ted Boettner and Sean O’Leary: What Biden’s Plan For “Building Back Better” Could Mean For The Ohio Valley (Ohio Valley Resource) Ted Boettner sees an opportunity for the Ohio Valley in the Biden administration’s plan, one that hearkens back to a past investment made in the region — the Appalachian Development Highway System.
Sean O’Leary: Saturated Market Killed The Brooke Power Plant (Herald-Dispatch) The decision by Energy Solutions Consortium (ESC) to cancel the Brooke County natural gas power plant had more to do with a lack of demand and investor fear than with the coal industry or actions by Gov. Jim Justice. While the $5.5 million loan from the Economic Development Authority caused an uproar, it represented less than 1% of the $884 million in estimated project costs.
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What We’re Reading at ORVI
Energy and democracy issues continue to dominate headlines. Here are the stories we are reading this week:
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PTT Delays Cracker Investment Decision Again (Times Leader) PTT Global Chemical America has scrapped its timetable for making a final investment decision on a proposed ethane cracker plant in Belmont County. PTTGCA spokesman Dan Williamson said Friday that plans to announce a decision in the first quarter of 2021 are no longer realistic. He said the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on the global economy are primarily to blame for the delay.
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Mayor Peduto Unveils ‘Marshall Plan For Middle America’ Aimed At Transitioning To A Green Economy (KDKA) The Peduto administration is joining with mayors from three other states for an initiative aimed at helping the Ohio River Valley and upper Appalachian region transition to a green economy.
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Column: Broadband Would Build Economy, Quality of Life in Appalachia (Columbus Dispatch) The Bipartisan Policy Center pointed out four strategies to simultaneously lower carbon and improve the economy that are heavily reliant on high-speed internet especially in rural areas: precision agriculture, precision forestry, next generation energy efficiency and resilient rural electric systems. Our recent jobs study found that building out broadband could create 5,700 jobs in Ohio alone.
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TRANSITION: Biden’s Energy Agenda Hinges on FERC, Red States (E&E News) The last time President-elect Joe Biden was in the White House, many of the Obama administration’s clean energy policies he championed were derailed by a Republican Senate majority and lawsuits by a swath of red-state governors. Those same forces appear aligned against Biden on the climate issue unless victories in two runoff races in Georgia in January give Democrats control of the Senate.
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David Shor’s Postmortem of The 2020 Election (New York Magazine) For the Democratic Party, the 2020 election was a devastating victory. Joe Biden won a larger share of the popular vote than any presidential challenger since 1932. The Rust Belt shed some red, while the Sun Belt trended blue. Democrats retained control of the House — and still have an outside shot at eking out a Senate majority.
- Trump’s Frack Attack Against President-Elect Biden Fails in Pennsylvania Gas Counties (EcoWatch) The Trump campaign’s efforts to attack President-elect Joe Biden and win Pennsylvania by claiming he would ban fracking failed, while Biden’s climate message appears to have boosted turnout, according to reporting from multiple outlets.
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Mountain Valley Pipeline Construction Across Streams, Wetlands Halted (State Journal) The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals sided with a group of environmental activists who asked the court for the stay while it considered the merits of their challenge of the water-crossing permits issued by the Army Corps of Engineers.
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