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Pennsylvanians voted Tuesday to hand the governorship to Democrat Josh Shapiro, whose targeted pro-natural gas platform helped lead him to victory in the top energy-producing state.
Shapiro, who is in his second term as the state’s attorney general, beat Republican opponent and state Sen. Doug Mastriano handily. His campaign was tailored to Pennsylvania, where in 2021 there were nearly 600,000 fewer Republicans than registered Democrats, who are more eager for government action geared toward limiting climate change than Republicans, but where hundreds of thousands of jobs are tied to the production and combustion of fossil fuels.
AN ELECTION SHAPED BY BIDEN’S CLIMATE AND ENERGY POLICIES
In what was an otherwise fairly liberal campaign, Shapiro diverged from the climate hawkish messaging of his national party, pledging a “comprehensive” climate and energy policy that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions and protect fossil fuel sector workers in the state, which produced more natural gas in 2021 than all other states but Texas.
“Energy is one of the great economic opportunities we have right here in Pennsylvania,” he told a natural gas industry crowd in late September, adding that he refuses “to accept the false choice between protecting jobs and protecting the environment.”
Shapiro’s platform advocated research and investment in renewable energy, advanced nuclear, hydrogen, carbon capture, and other zero-carbon technologies of the type Congress just subsidized to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars in the Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act. But he also said he would support the state’s gas industry, pledging to be an “all-of-the-above energy governor.”
That term is not used by Democrats but is popular among Republicans seeking to communicate that they support alternative energy and traditional energy.
Shapiro has a record of confronting the fossil fuel sector as attorney general. In February, he announced criminal charges against a pipeline developer, alleging that negligence and environmental crimes led to an explosion that damaged property and transmission lines.
He has distinguished himself from many national Democrats, though, by promoting a positive view of the industry, which Mastriano, as well as Republican Mehmet Oz and Democrat John Fetterman in the Senate race, also made part of their campaigns.
“It’s pretty crazy all four candidates for statewide office in Pennsylvania support the sector,” a source with ties to the state’s natural gas industry told the Washington Examiner, adding that Oz and Fetterman “went out of their way to profess support for the industry” during their television debate.
International organizations, including the International Energy Agency and the United Nations, have pressured countries to drastically slow or end new fossil fuel projects in order to reach the Paris Agreement’s threshold of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Congressional Democrats, including President Joe Biden, have promoted policies to restrict or discourage new oil, gas, and coal ventures, and environmental groups have frequently made note of the IEA’s pronouncements against fossil fuel expansion in lobbying the Biden administration to stop leasing federal acreage for oil and gas development immediately or to otherwise enact new restrictions on the industry.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Responding to the global energy crisis, which has been exacerbated by the war in Ukraine’s upending of fuel markets, Biden and many Democrats have argued that reducing reliance on fossil fuels is key to reducing energy prices in favor of renewables, which have grown cheaper and cheaper over the years.
At the same time, the administration is asking oil and gas producers to invest more in additional production, and Biden pledged to help increase shipments of natural gas to Europe through at least 2030.