Gas Truth rally challenges Pa. guv

Hundreds of anti-drilling activists braved icy weather to demonstrate in Harrisburg at the Jan. 18 inauguration of Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett. Loud chants of “Tom Corporate, No Way! No Fracking in PA!” drowned out the pro-drilling governor’s speech and could be heard during televised coverage of the event.

Jan. 18 protest at Gov. Tom Corbett’s inauguration. WW photo: Betsey Piette

Corbett, a Republican and former state attorney general, took his oath of office on the state’s Capitol steps, as anti-fracking protesters from around the state rallied within sight on Soldiers’ Grove a few hundred yards away. The ice storm forced cancellation of a bus of protesters from the northeastern part of the state, the area hardest hit by Marcellus Shale drilling.

Gas Truth of Central PA, which aims to obtain a statewide drilling moratorium, organized the rally. The group held a large banner calling the governor “Tom Corporate,” referring to major election campaign contributions Corbett received from the natural gas industry. Other signs called him “Toxic Tom.”

The natural gas industry has rushed into states like Pennsylvania, with little or no environmental regulation, to take advantage of recently discovered shale formations like Marcellus and Utica, thought to contain massive natural gas reserves worth billions of dollars.

Corbett opposes new taxes on natural gas drilling, leaving Pennsylvania the only state with significant, yet untaxed, natural gas production. He plans to repeal a moratorium on further leasing of state forest lands for drilling, which outgoing Gov. Ed Rendell decreed in October.

Harrisburg activist Gene Stilip described Corbett as “totally beholden to the natural gas corporations.” He raised concerns that Corbett will open the way for the industry’s use of eminent domain to take over properties across the state. “If they ruin the water in this state, we are finished,” Stilip concluded.

When Pittsburgh City Councilperson Douglas Shields asked, “Are we going to stand by while our state and townships are laid waste by corporate greed,” the crowd answered with a resounding “No!” In November, Pittsburgh’s city council voted 9-0 to ban natural gas drilling. Other Marcellus Shale region cities, including Buffalo, N.Y., want to pass similar bans.

“We are not here to be slaves of corporations or colonies of Harrisburg,” Shields said. “As a [councilperson], I took an oath to uphold Commonwealth law that people have the right to clean air, pure water and preservation of environment. Pennsylvania’s natural resources are common property, not corporate property.”

Virginia Cody told the gathering, “This talk is for Corbett as he sits in his ivory tower counting the money donated to him by the natural gas industry. Tom, it’s not the gas industry, but the people who will determine your success or failure. In taking your oath today, you are swearing to protect us, not the natural gas industry.”

Cody, an anti-drilling activist from Wyoming County in northeastern Pennsylvania, was the whistle-blower who exposed Pennsylvania Homeland Security’s spying on activists. “We are not terrorists, and we don’t deserve to have our demonstrations for clean air and water labeled as ‘dangers to national security,’” Cody said.

Jefferson County farmer Steve Cleghorn described how gas wells are beginning to surround his 50-acre goat farm. “The gas industry has undertaken a huge gamble. They call it the Marcellus ‘play.’ They have no study that shows fracking is safe or that they aren’t going to despoil the landscape.”

After the rally, demonstrators gathered to plan ways to broaden the anti-drilling movement. Activists from the Marcellus and Utica Shale regions will discuss strategies to ban hydraulic fracturing at a Jan. 29 conference on “No Drilling, No Compromise!” in Williamsport, Pa.