| A Message from Our Executive Director |
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| In a time of partisan political gridlock in Washington, DC, municipalities throughout the region are weathering the anxiety of maintaining operations and meeting financial obligations without the promise of relief from the federal government. In a similar state of anxiety, residents are living with the fear of a K-shaped recovery that would see lower-income families struggle to rebound as higher-income households that started with more of a safety net are able to recover more quickly. While much of the election season rhetoric focuses on future “jobs and the economy” decisions that are being made today by Congress, the Trump administration, and local economic development authorities will have a significant impact on our financial, physical, and emotional health. Yet many of these decisions are flying under the radar and very few decision makers seem interested in policies that would provide meaningful support for the working class.
In this edition of the ORVI Insider, we feature our Advisory Council Member, Lou Martin, a labor historian and Associate Professor at Chatham University who has devoted his career to the study of working-class politics, Appalachian history and culture, and twentieth-century political economy. Lou is also the author of Smokestacks in the Hills: Rural-Industrial Workers in West Virginia and serves on the board of directors for the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum. Born in West Virginia, Lou’s connection to the Ohio River Valley runs deep and his work reflects a humble sophistication regarding the working class and the role of union organizing in securing better quality of life for workers.
We also share an important conversation about the influence of fossil fuel money in our local democracy, featuring Senior Researcher Sean O’Leary, and highlight new research from our staff on risks to our communities from allowing Liquefied Natural Gas to be transported by rail, and how renewable energy surpassed coal in electricity generation in Texas. |
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| Advisor’s Corner: Meet Advisory Council Member Lou Martin |
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In a new guest blog post, Lou writes that “the key to stronger communities in the Ohio River Valley is not trying to turn the clock back to an industrial past, but to learn the lesson of how we got those ‘good jobs’ of yesterday: a robust labor movement protected by strong labor laws.”
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Lou Martin is an associate professor of history at Chatham University in Pittsburgh, a board member of the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum, and an honorary member of UMWA Local 1440. His research focuses on rural-industrial workers in Appalachia. He has published articles in LABOR: Working-Class Histories of the Americas, Labor History, Pennsylvania History, West Virginia History, and Jacobin.
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New Rule Allows Explosive Liquefied Natural Gas on Rail Lines Near You: Pennsylvania becomes the guinea pig for hazardous shipment of LNG by rail.
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A surprising Trump administration ruling in 2020 allowed trains to carry tank cars full of LNG. In response, two separate lawsuits were filed last month—one by 15 states, including Pennsylvania, and another by six environmental groups—challenging federal agencies on the rule. Particularly at risk is eastern Pennsylvania, including Philadelphia, because an industrial facility in New Jersey will likely soon win permits to receive LNG by rail from northeast Pennsylvania. The development is almost certainly a harbinger of more widespread LNG rail shipments that could soon endanger communities near rail lines across the United States, and especially those near gas-producing regions.
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Renewable Energy: The New Texas Tea: Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia should try it instead of throwing up barriers.
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In the decade during which annual electricity generation from coal dropped by 35 GW, natural gas generation grew by 53 GW. But, wind power and solar power added even more at 62 GW. Today, renewable resources provide over 20% of all electricity in Texas. That’s more than coal and renewables are gaining on natural gas. And the cost? In 2009, Texas had a higher average total electric price than the nation as a whole and much higher than Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. But, during the next ten years when Texas was laying in large volumes of renewable energy its average price dropped by 15% while prices in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and the nation all rose.
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Democracy Unchained: A Conversation Series – Democracy v. Fossil Fuels. Senior Researcher Sean O’Leary serves as a panelist in the most recent episode of Democracy Unchained: A Conversation Series, presented by State of American Democracy. The episode, Democracy v. Fossil Fuels, examines the troubling relationship between the fossil fuel industry and policymakers in the region and what that relationship tells us about the role of corporate money in our democracy.
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In conversation with Larry Schweiger, Chair of Climate Reality Action Fund and former President of PennFuture, and Randi Pokladnik, local climate activist, Sean opines on the perplexing fossil fuel politics in Pennsylvania and Ohio, where policymakers maintain their fealty to the natural gas industry despite its failure to generate jobs and prosperity–and pledge it anew to the petrochemical industry, which, in the unlikely event that a buildout even occurs, will produce the same disappointing result. Fossil fuel interests are not only a bad bet for our democracy, but for our local and regional economies, too–the Ohio River Valley needs decision makers who seek to increase community participation in planning and policy development, and who will prioritize the prosperity of their constituents rather than chasing literal and figurative pipe dreams.
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ORVI In The News
Eric de Place: Fact-Checking The Energy Secretary (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
Ten years of data reveal a hard truth: the shale gas and petrochemical industries have failed to deliver prosperity. They have failed to boost total employment and failed to reinvigorate manufacturing. It is about time for western Pennsylvania to invest in a different economic course.
Ted Boettner and Josh Sword: Workers in West Virginia Make Less by Design (Charleston Gazette-Mail)
Workers in West Virginia should be making $117,000 a year on average — and they would be, too, if only we had pursued the same economic strategies we had in the postwar years between 1945 and 1975.
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What We’re Reading at ORVI
As presidential campaigns heat up and the COVID-19 pandemic persists across the country, energy and democracy issues are taking center stage in the news. Our researchers have compiled the top stories of the past week to keep you informed and up to date on key developments in the sectors that matter most to our region.
- The “Other America”: The Poverty and Peril of Domestic Workers (Working-Class Perspectives) The recovery and prosperity of the stock market is generating headlines. But the market reflects the prospects of the already wealthy; it is by no means the story of the real economy. Drilling down into new data offers a deeper look into the livelihoods of 2.5 million domestic workers. They are the home care workers assisting our elders and other family members with health conditions or disabilities, nannies who tend our kids, and the cleaners for our apartments and homes.
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A Regulatory Rush by Federal Agencies to Secure Trump’s Legacy (New York Times) With the president’s re-election in doubt, cabinet departments are scrambling to finish dozens of new rules affecting millions of Americans. Some cases, like a new rule to allow railroads to move highly flammable liquefied natural gas on freight trains, have led to warnings of public safety threats.
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Emergency Plans Fail to Consider Complexity of Mariner East Pipelines, and Those Most at Risk in an Accident (Spotlight PA) As many as 345,000 people potentially live within harm’s way of Sunoco’s Mariner East pipelines, a more than $5.1 billion project to ferry natural gas liquids across the southern half of Pennsylvania from west to east. But a patchwork system of preparedness across all levels of government has left many unsure of what to do and in immediate danger should an accident occur. Plans largely fail to account for people with disabilities, the elderly, the ill, and children.
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Campaign 2020: Oil and Gas Industry Goes In Big for Trump (E&E News) Among Trump’s biggest financial backers in the oil and gas world is Kelcy Warren, the chairman of pipeline giant Energy Transfer LP and its CEO until earlier this month. Warren cut a $10 million check to America First Action, a pro-Trump super PAC, in August; gave the president’s campaign $720,000 with his wife, Amy, last year; and held a fundraiser for Trump at his Dallas home this summer.
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Energy Security, International Investment, and Democracy: The Case of the United States Shale Oil and Gas Industry (Democracy and Security) In the United States, a certain type of “patriotic” rhetoric urges increased energy security and enhanced national security by expanding the shale oil and gas industry (“shale industry” for short). In recent years, however, billions of dollars of actual and promised foreign investment has been directed toward the nation’s rural areas. Aside from the fiscal returns to rural areas from such investments, this paper highlights some of the ways in which such investments lead to negative security externalities and weakened democratic values.
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Appalachian Town Must ‘Wait And Wait’ As Pandemic Puts Plastics Plant On Hold (KPBS) Oil and gas backers say a decade of fracking has unlocked enough gas in this region for four or five chemical plants like PTT’s. But so far only one is under construction, a Shell plant near Pittsburgh, which President Trump has visited to tout U.S. “energy dominance.” Now, as the Ohio project has stalled amid the pandemic, some wonder if it will ever be built.
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FERC Confirms Carbon Pricing Jurisdiction in Wholesale Markets, Chatterjee ‘Encourages’ Proposals (Utility Dive) The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Thursday cemented its jurisdiction over carbon pricing within wholesale markets, confirming that it does have the authority to approve such rules if brought forward by grid operators.
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ARC Investing Over 15 Million In Ohio Valley Economic Projects (Ohio Valley Resource) The investments are going towards projects that will support broadband expansion, workforce development, entrepreneurship opportunities, and substance abuse recovery in the region’s coal-impacted communities.
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Court Issues Stay Delaying Mountain Valley Pipeline Stream Crossing (Charleston Gazette Mail) The legal back and forth over construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline continued Friday as a federal court issued a temporary administrative stay barring construction across streams in West Virginia and Virginia. Conservation groups led by the Sierra Club requested the stay Thursday, citing environmental concerns.
- WV Land Polluted by Coal Mines Transforms into Recreation Area (Public News Service) As a result of a lawsuit over water pollution from mining, a tract of land that once housed surface mines is being repurposed as a public recreation area for West Virginians. The Mammoth Preserve in Kanawha County will offer mountain biking, hiking trails and other amenities. A coalition of environmental groups sued the Alpha Natural Resources mining company more than 10 years ago over selenium discharge that contaminated nearby waters.
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