Thread by @BerksGasTruth

Predictably, @JohnFetterman used jobs as the reason why we shouldn't #banfracking in his con to my pro on the issue in this @PhillyInquirer op-ed. Just as predictably, he used the piece to promote #RestorePA. (thread)

inquirer.com/opinion/commen…

Along the way, he invoked the purity argument against the anti-fracking movement and, by extension, the climate movement.

It is the purity of the firefighter trying to save the home.

Meanwhile, the impure side that he aligns with is not taking the approach of achieving the same goal, just more slowly. He and his boss may use that rhetoric when defending their indefensible position, but #RestorePA is just one of the ways they are actually fanning the flames.

#RestorePA relies on a severance tax on 20 years' worth of drilling and #fracking to fund a plan that includes subsidies for the petrochemical industry. That's why our @BetterPathPA has fought it since it was proposed and why we have persuaded sponsors to remove their names.

PA's preeminent climate scientist @MichaelEMann had this to say in @PennCapitalStar. “I know that Governor Wolf wants to do right by the people of this state,” Mann said in an email. “So I hope he will reconsider this misguided plan.” penncapital-star.com/energy-environ…

But #RestorePA is not the only climate-killing policy @GovernorTomWolf promotes. He has supported shale gas development in numerous ways. Here are some examples.

Here's what he said the same morning he announced his greenhouse gas emissions plans on 1/8/19. “If we’re going to have a healthy gas industry, we need a pipeline network" kdkaradio.radio.com/articles/gover…

Here's a false claim re: the Beaver Cracker Plant he supports. “We all want clean air and clean water and we have to ask what is the best way to get there? What is coming out of the cracker plant is part of that energy-efficient future.” kdkaradio.radio.com/media/audio-ch…

In fact, "The Beaver County cracker plant has been permitted to emit 2.2 million tons of carbon dioxide, which is the equivalent of adding more than 480,000 cars to the region," says this great frackchecking piece by @RyanDeto @PGHCityPaper. pghcitypaper.com/pittsburgh/fac…

Here's what @GovernorTomWolf says about petrochemicals. “Pennsylvania has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to develop and implement a strategy that will cultivate a manufacturing renaissance and transform our economy across the Commonwealth.” dced.pa.gov/newsroom/gover…

He's talking about plastics. The Wolf administration is not just oblivious to the move around the world to draw down consumption and production of #fossilfuels, it is also oblivious to the move to ban plastics.

As the shale gas industry is crushed by the weight of its own false promises about profitability, the erosion of the market due to urgent efforts to save the planet have caused drillers to cut their workforce and even declare bankruptcy. So what does PA's government do?

It props up the failing #fracking business by supporting a second generation based on producing ethane to make the plastics that are being banned worldwide. Brilliant.

.@GovernorTomWolf may view this as a once-in-a-generation opportunity. What generation is he talking about? Not this one.

“We need to get to that solar future, that wind future, as quickly as possible,” said @GovernorTomWolf . “How do we do that? It’s not by banning fracking.” He's good at saying things and then producing no evidence that supports his claim. kdkaradio.radio.com/media/audio-ch…

But for @JohnFetterman, given the choice of saving the planet or saving jobs, he picks jobs... and suggests we 'purists' just don't get it.

Here's what he doesn't get, or choose to get. The climate movement is committed to a just transition that makes sure communities and workers are not left behind. That's one of the points I made in making the case for banning fracking.

Intransigent politicians who just want to keep subsidizing the industry are the ones failing workers and everyone else.

In spite of all of PA government's support, all those relaxed regulations, all those laws that never got made, all of those violations that went unpunished, & all of those subsidies, Pittsburgh-based companies cut more than 400 jobs last year. The cuts will keep on coming.

The climate movement wants workers to be retrained for the green economy. PA politicians are actually the ones leaving workers exposed by throwing more money at dying industries instead of taking proactive steps to move the state & labor force forward.

And, by the way, the vast majority of the workers are not represented by unions. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says the percentage of workers in the Mining category, that includes O&G extraction, was 4.7% in 2019.

The vast majority of workers are not enjoying the protections represented workers enjoy. From @JustinNobel's piece America's Radioactive Secret in @RollingStone 'Expert testimony in lawsuits by dozens of Louisiana oil-and-gas industry workers going back decades and...

settled in 2016 show that pipe cleaners, welders, roughnecks, roustabouts, derrickmen, and truck drivers hauling dirty pipes and sludge all were exposed to radioactivity without their knowledge and suffered a litany of lethal cancers." rollingstone.com/politics/polit…

In the end, @JohnFetterman made my case for me. When false and hyperbolic arguments come from the Democratic Lt. Gov. and not @RepMetcalfe,...

it's clear that more sensible minds at the federal level, like @SenSanders, @SenJeffMerkley, @AOC, and @RepDarrenSoto and their Fracking Ban Act are our best hope. foodandwaterwatch.org/news/over-570-…