WILKES-BARRE — The state legislature recently passed a tax credit package that has been met with great praise and sharp criticism.
The Pennsylvania Building and Construction Trades Council praised passage of what it termed a “visionary tax credit package for Pennsylvania workers and communities.”
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) called HB 1059 a bill that “establishes and expands several state tax credits, some of which would benefit highly speculative petrochemical facilities and the fracked gas industry without regard for Pennsylvania’s environment, community health and safety, or climate change.”
The PA Building and Construction Trades Council thanked State Sen. John Yudichak, I-Swoyersville, for his “unwavering support” of the PA Building Trades, which helped to inspire bipartisan support for HB 1059.
“Act 108 of 2022 is the most significant economic development package signed into law in Pennsylvania history, and it was delivered with the support of Gov. Tom Wolf and a broad, bi-partisan coalition of legislators and our brothers and sisters in the Pennsylvania Building & Construction Trades and AFL-CIO.” Yudichak said. “The $4 billion in new economic incentives will produce billions of dollars in private investments, create thousands of new jobs, and produce millions of dollars in local and state tax revenue to bolster struggling communities across Pennsylvania.”
However, the NRDC said the bill would award tax credits for the use of either “clean hydrogen” or fracked gas in hard-to-decarbonize industries like steel-making. The NRDC opposed HB 1059, which will now go to Gov. Tom Wolf’s desk where it is expected to be signed.
The Pennsylvania Building and Construction Trades Council called the bill “an unprecedented and bipartisan action.”
The Pennsylvania House of Representatives and Pennsylvania Senate, on Oct. 26, adopted HB 1059 with the stalwart support and advocacy of Pennsylvania Labor Unions united for “family sustaining jobs and a vision for the future of the Commonwealth.”
The 130,000 member Pennsylvania State Building and Construction Trades Council President, Rob Bair, hailed the legislation as a breakthrough in positioning Pennsylvania to, “embrace cutting edge energy technologies, today and in the foreseeable future, that will position Pennsylvania to attract broadly based and diverse industry back to our state by assuring environmentally friendly, carbon emission reducing and abundantly available energy sources to sustain Pennsylvania business development for generations.”
Bair, whose Organization is the Central Address for skilled Construction Labor in the state, went on to recognize that, “The coalition of Unions that came together to support this Bill — the Pennsylvania State Building Trades Council, the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO and its affiliated labor organizations, the local Central Labor Councils across the state and the regional Building and Construction Trades Councils, was the unifying force that transcended partisan politics in the best interests of our Commonwealth.”
The Council went on to say that this legislation is historic in its breadth and is anticipated to position Pennsylvania as a state that attracts business, a state that creates family sustaining jobs paying middle class wages and family securing benefits, and a state that is embracing technology to help us lower our carbon emissions while assuring energy security and availability for our children and our grandchildren.
Mark Szybist, Senior Attorney for the Climate and Clean Energy Program at NRDC, issued a statement in opposition to the legislation:
“HB 1059 is a deeply flawed bill, chiefly because its new tax credits will provide massive financial support to petrochemical manufacturing and shale gas extraction unconditioned on either pollution limits or protections for communities where supported facilities will be located.
“The bill’s provision to establish a tax credit for clean hydrogen represents a huge missed opportunity for the state to leverage recently enacted federal clean hydrogen programs. Instead, it includes a massive loophole under which a steel or cement plant that might otherwise be subsidized for utilizing clean hydrogen that meets federal standards, could tap a subsidy for shale gas for decades, perversely driving more carbon pollution – not less.
“And adding insult to injury is the process by which HB 1059 was passed — the legislative language was released and voted on in less than 24 hours without a single hearing or opportunity for public input. This is a case study in how not to enact a law that’s in the interest of the people of Pennsylvania.”