Corbett Killing Renewable Energy Programs (and Jobs) in Pennsylvania

[blue neen]

"The Corbett administration is de-emphasizing renewable energy and energy conservation, eliminating programs created by previous Democratic and Republican administrations as it focuses on natural gas energy from booming Marcellus Shale."

"Quietly but systematically, the administration has all but shut down the state Department of Environmental Protection's Office of Energy and Technology Deployment -- the state's primary energy office -- and removed directors and reassigned staff in the Office of Energy Management in the Department of General Services and the Governor's Green Government Council."

"It has also forbidden state executive agencies from signing contracts that support clean energy supply."

<snip>

"The changes will put more than 100,000 "green jobs" in the renewable energy and energy efficiency industries at risk, according to Citizens for Pennsylvania's Future -- PennFuture -- a statewide environmental organization that last week launched a campaign to protect and restore programs and jobs it says are under attack."

"In the past 12 years, Pennsylvania has gone from having virtually no clean energy jobs to employing more than 106,000 Pennsylvanians in the clean energy industry, despite the national recession," said Jan Jarrett, president and chief executive officer of Penn Future. "These program cuts and legislative attacks threaten to kill those good, family-sustaining jobs."

Read more (if you can stand it) at:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11226/1167245-454.stm

[blue neen]

1. Corbett's Corporate Ass-Kissing knows no bounds.

It's freaking amazing.

[JPZenger]

2. Reminds Me of Reagan Destroying Solar Energy Programs

It reminds me of Ronnie Raygun coming into the White House and destroying all of the alternative energy programs that were set up in the 1970s. That included ripping down all of the new solar panels on top of the White House. The alternative energy companies were then bought up by big oil before they quietly disappeared. It set back the US by decades.

[Cosmocat]

5. Yep ...

My thought, too.

Had the country kept advancing the energy initiatives that Carter put into place, today, 30 years later, we would be in a LOT better place, just worlds different. Instead, we are stuck in the same energy quagmire we were stuck in 30 years ago. (and Clinton SHOULD have taken this on, too).

Just tragic stuff, and so fits in with the flat out mean and harmful mindset of the republican party.

[livetohike]

3. Corbett is thinking of new ways to screw Pennsylvania every

day. We knew it would be this bad and it's going to get worse :-(.

[blue neen]

4. Corbett is destroying our state. He's just another Koch Brothers' Stooge.

"One former DEP employee, who asked that he not be named because he continues to work on energy issues in Harrisburg, said of the Energy Office, "it's being taken apart piece-by-piece and the pieces are being thrown away."

"The Green Government Council, created under Gov. Tom Ridge, a Republican, was established to help state agencies adopt environmentally sustainable operations. Its staff and program responsibilities have been "gutted," the employee said, and it continues to exist primarily to provide federally mandated tracking and performance reports for a number of federal energy programs."

"The administration's prohibition against sustainable and alternative energy purchases reverses a policy that by the beginning of this year, had the state buying 50 percent of its electricity from renewable sources, according to PennFuture, and made it "a national leader in the development of the clean energy economy."

"The Office of Energy Management has seen its director fired, its staff reassigned and, according to PennFuture, has been moved from the Department of General Services to the Bureau of Public Works. It administered the Guaranteed Energy Savings Act, which helps school districts and local governments invest in energy conservation and efficiency programs and conservation."

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11226/1167245-454.stm#ixzz1V7mJSdHu