Analysis: You Can't Go Fishing With A Solar Panel

Politically-motivated critics of the Corbett Administration this week generated newspaper headlines pointing to changes in office names and the restructuring of certain programs as evidence the new gang in Harrisburg is "backing away from its commitment to renewable energy and killing family-sustaining jobs" or words to that effect.

It's interesting to note here, not of course in those articles, those same critics received millions of dollars of taxpayer money during the Rendell Administration to work on renewable energy projects.

During that same time, more hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars were also spent or diverted from programs which actually did clean up the environment and given to programs like renewable energy which don't.

In fact, over the last nine years $1.5 billion has been cut or diverted from environmental protection and restoration line items to balance the state budget or support programs which could not get funding on their own.

The award-winning Growing Greener Program has become all but bankrupt. And, over 600 of what was 3,200 positions at the Department of Environmental Protection have been eliminated.
Another fact not noted in the articles was over 100 DEP Air, Waste and Water Quality field staff used all or part of their time to act as managers for federal stimulus projects, projects funded by the Energy Harvest and PA Energy Development Authority programs taking their time away from permit reviews, inspections and compliance activities, things that really do protect the environment and give DEP its ability to be the environmental police.

Like it or not we now live in a public environment where "no-tax" pledges are the norm and cutting government budgets is to be expected. But cutting budgets, especially for environmental programs, did not begin with the Corbett Administration, it happened each and every year of the Rendell Administration taking a horrendous toll on DEP's ability to do its job.

And for what? Renewable energy-- solar panels and wind mills.

There is no denying the argument that spending hundreds of millions of taxpayer money on renewable energy does create jobs. Spending hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on almost anything that is built with concrete and steel creates jobs.

The question is does spending hundreds of millions of taxpayers' money on projects that have no lasting environmental cleanup value the best investment the public can make? Clearly, not in the public environment we find ourselves no.

Again, like it or not, the General Assembly and the Governor have to set priorities in spending increasingly scarce public dollars.

The choices are stark: spending hundreds of millions of dollars on projects that are "nice to have" or spending money on projects through Growing Greener and other programs with lasting environmental cleanup value to meet federal Clean Water Act mandates and which contribute to Pennsylvania's number one and two industries-- agriculture and tourism.

According to DEP, Pennsylvania has over 16,500 miles of rivers and streams not meeting very real and court-enforced federal Clean Water Act mandates.
Through programs like Growing Greener, local watershed groups have cleaned up thousands of miles of streams, reclaimed abandoned mines, restored trout fisheries and tackled 125-year old programs no one thought they could, all the while investing their own $1.25 in money and sweat equity for every $1 in public money they were given.

Do we-- or any taxpayers-- feel the same sense of pride and accomplishment when we look at a wind mill or a solar panel?

Can you take your grandchild fishing with a solar panel? Or instill a sense of environmental stewardship that will last a lifetime with a wind mill?
The same question of priorities is now being debated with the Marcellus Shale severance tax and drilling fee proposals.

Will we balance the state budget or take care of pension bills state government and school districts have ignored for a decade?

Or will we invest funding from the development of Pennsylvania's natural resources and use it for programs to restore our constitutionally-guaranteed right to a clean environment to the environment's and the public's continuing benefit?

It's about setting priorities, tough as they are, and separating the "must dos" from the "nice to haves."

Like it or not.

NewsClips: Corbett Administration Responds To Renewable Charges
Corbett Turns Attention From Renewable Energy