Letter to the editor: Oil and gas delusions

No region has suffered more than ours from oil and gas industry exaggeration and falsehoods. By deluding policymakers into believing that gas development creates jobs and prosperity, the industry diverts taxpayer dollars into its own pockets, receives regulatory favors that put our health at risk, and short-circuits efforts to explore economic opportunities that actually can produce jobs and prosperity.

For example, the letter from the American Petroleum Institute’s Stephanie Catarino Wissman (“Hydrogen key to clean energy future,” Nov. 9, TribLive) claims hydrogen development can cut greenhouse gas emissions by 37%. But the ARCH2 hydrogen hub’s own figures show emission reductions of less than 2% in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia.

Wissman also claims that her industry supports 423,000 jobs in Pennsylvania. The Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages shows just 81,432 jobs, a fifth of Wissman’s number and less than 2% of all Pennsylvania jobs. Worse, half of the jobs are in gas stations and convenience stores that pay an average of just $25,227 a year. And ARCH2 says it will add only 3,000 permanent jobs, a less than one-tenth of 1% increase.

Wissman and her industry should be exposed and condemned for misleading us.

Sean O’Leary

Indianola, Wash.

The writer is a senior researcher with the Johnstown-based Ohio River Valley Institute.