The Pennsylvania State Budget Fails to Take On Growing Energy Concerns

PennFuture's President & CEO Patrick McDonnell issued the following statement on the passage of the Pennsylvania State Budget:

Today’s state budget agreement fails Pennsylvanians - despite the overwhelming bipartisan support for sensible policies that would reduce utility bills for families, advance clean energy, promote clean water, and regulate data centers, none of that made it into this deal.

In fact, this budget prioritizes fracked gas companies by allowing them to drill even deeper, a strategy that only serves to further enrich wealthy CEOs as the rest of us watch our electricity bills climb higher due to our overreliance on this unreliable and expensive energy source.

In contrast, this budget continues to cut funding for our popular state parks and forests. Politicians continue the dangerous shell game of tying funding for parks to an unstable revenue source based on the very fracking that threatens them.

This budget does take a small and important step to increase transparency around the impact of data center development through reporting on energy and water usage. However, this measure does nothing to mitigate the negative impact of unchecked development across Pennsylvania.

In March, PennFuture called for a statewide moratorium on data center development pending the successful adoption of policies to protect all of us from this extractive industry. Lawmakers must act when session resumes in the fall.

Pennsylvanians suffer from high costs and very real concerns about our ability to keep the lights on and protect our natural resources. But this legislative session has seen numerous attacks on clean energy, clean air, pure water, and our most treasured parks and forests. This budget process provided an opportunity to advance real solutions to these issues. Today’s budget deal defers critical decisions to a future legislature and Governor when we are out of time.