Pennsylvania House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee passed several measures that seek to maximize energy independence, ramp up domestic energy production across the state, and unleash the state’s potential to power American allies, Committee Chairman Daryl Metcalfe (R-Butler) said Monday.
“Pennsylvania’s oil and gas industries are ready, willing, and able to increase domestic production if free-market policies are put in place to allow our resources to be cost-effectively transported throughout the country and around the globe to America’s allies,” Metcalfe said. “In order to fully unleash Pennsylvania’s unmatched potential to power the free world, we must work together to cancel both China Joe Biden’s and Gov. Tom Wolf’s job-killing, punitive crusade against the profitable production and exportation of natural gas and other homegrown fossil fuels.”
Included in the legislation addressed by the committee were several measures to call on others to help the state overcome obstructions. House Resolution 187, introduced by House Majority Appropriations Chairman Rep. Stan Saylor (R-York), would urge the governors of New York and New Jersey to end anti-pipeline policies blocking Pennsylvania natural gas from reaching other markets in New England. House Resolution 189, introduced by Metcalfe, would call on the administration of President Joe Biden and Congress to take measures to increase America’s long-term energy affordability and security by ensuring continued operation and expansion of the country’s oil and gas infrastructure – specifically calling on the federal government to stop blocking pipeline development.
Other legislation would increase the production and exportation of energy products.
House Bill 2461, introduced by state Rep. Clint Owlett (R-Tioga/Bradford/Potter), would end the governor’s moratorium on subsurface leases of state land.
“We can preserve our state lands just as they are now by requiring that the surface well site be placed outside of state property,” Owlett said. “The revenue generated from leasing the subsurface rights would create a vital, continuous source of money that would be used to promote and protect our environment in Pennsylvania, but most importantly, it would put us on a path to energy independence.”
House Bills 2450 and 2451, introduced by state Rep. Jonathan Fritz (R-Wayne/Susquehanna), would open the Delaware River Basin for natural gas development and exploration, while House Bill 2458, introduced by state Rep. Martina White (R-Philadelphia), would create a task force to study establishing the port of Philadelphia as a Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) export terminal. And Senate Bill 119, introduced by state Sen. Joe Pittman (R-Armstrong/Butler/Indiana/Westmoreland), would clarify that the Department of Environmental Protection may not join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative or pursue similar efforts to control carbon dioxide emissions without first obtaining authorization from the General Assembly.
“Thanks to our God-given abundance of natural resources, there is no excuse for America to ever import Russian energy,” Metcalfe said. “‘Drill baby drill’ needs to become our Commonwealth’s battle cry for maximizing energy independence by halting the governor’s carbon tax imposing RGGI scheme, senseless pipeline bans, and other insane leftist, fake science-driven policies that are fueling Putin’s remorseless war machine and crushing all of us at the pumps.”