01/11/2025
Who Is Mr. Langworthy Really Trying to Help?
It was with disappointment but no surprise to see Mr. Langworthy pushing for ‘Unleashing the Southern Tier’s Energy Potential.’ The questions are why, who will benefit, and who will be harmed? The first question is easy.
“Many of the actions by which men have become rich are far more harmful to the community than the obscure crimes of poor men, yet they go unpunished because they do not interfere with the existing order.” – Bertrand Russell
During the election, Trump asked energy industry executives to donate $1 billion to aid his campaign to retake the White House. Elon Musk, who earns billions with government contracts, spent over a quarter of a billion dollars on Trump’s campaign. Who are Trump and Langworthy most interested in helping, you or their donors? This used to be a crime. Now it is just part of the existing order.
As for who will benefit from a fracking boom in the Southern Tier, Mr. Langworthy hinted at many (short-term) union jobs and claimed a disparity in wealth along our border with Pennsylvania. The facts don’t back up his claims.
In March 2024, the state of Pennsylvania reported 16,831 direct jobs in the gas and oil extraction industry, less than one half of 1% of all jobs. In 2023, the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics listed direct oil and gas jobs in Pennsylvania at about 12,000. It appears that Mr. Langworthy’s claims of tremendous job growth are just not true.
The great wealth divide along the border of New York and Pennsylvania is also a figment of Mr. Langworthy’s imagination. Five counties in NY23 share the border with five counties in Pennsylvania. The counties in Mr. Langworthy’s district actually have higher median household incomes than those directly across the border in PA. In 2011, the median household income of the five Pennsylvania counties was $41,884. By 2022, it rose to $58,276, an increase of 39.2%. Over that same period, the median household income of the five border counties of the Southern Tier grew from $43,528 to $58,821, an increase of 35.2%. What is Mr. Langworthy talking about? We know from this past election that perception is reality and if you repeat the lie often enough, people will believe it.
There is a small amount of evidence that fracking may improve local finances, but it is scant and insignificant. The five counties in Pennsylvania with the most fracking had a higher household median income in 2011 than the border counties mentioned and saw slightly higher growth but it was only a few tenths percent per year and there is no indication that it was related to fracking.
A 2017 study, Economic Changes in Pennsylvania within the Context of Marcellus Shale Development, by The Center for Rural Pennsylvania, an agency of the PA General Assembly, found that economic changes associated with Marcellus Shale development were “positive but modest” and “the modest gains in employment and compensation are likely to be only felt in the short term.” Who is Mr. Langworthy really trying to help?
This modest short-term benefit comes at a great cost, which Mr. Lanworthy fails to mention. In 2023, the Pennsylvania Department of Health apologized to the people of southwestern PA for not listening to communities suffering health impacts from shale gas development after the University of Pittsburgh revealed that people living within 10 miles of one or more wells producing natural gas have a 4-5 times greater chance of severe attacks and hospitalization for asthma. A Yale School of Public Health paper in 2022 showed that children living near Pennsylvania wells that use fracking to harvest natural gas are two to three times more likely to contract a form of childhood leukemia than their peers who live farther away. The nonprofit Physicians for Social Responsibility and Concerned Health Professionals of New York published a compendium of 2,239 peer-reviewed papers that found evidence of harm from unconventional gas drilling. No one has “been safely extracting natural gas for years” like Mr. Langworthy claims.
As for Mr. Langworthy’s fluff about restoring ‘American energy-independence’. I’m sure he realizes our nation is already energy independent, producing more oil and gas than we can use. The supply already exceeds the demand and we are exporting the excess. How can you ‘restore’ what you already have? The lies used to push for more extraction of natural gas are not to help the average citizen but to increase the profits of the fossil fuel industry, those from whom Trump asked for $1 billion. The push for expanded pipelines is to get more fossil fuels to the coasts where they can be exported. The US is already the world’s largest exporter of LNG with plans to double it over the next 3 years. Those who will benefit from Mr. Langworthy’s push for fracking NY does not seem to be the people it will harm, but the fossil fuel executives who have paid to play.
Mr. Langworthy’s call to ‘unleash the power of the Southern Tier’ ignores or purposely misrepresents some facts. I suggest Mr. Langworthy reviews those facts, and his loyalties, and strives to truly help the people of the Southern Tier. We may have a Golden Age over the next four years, but for corporate America and the already wealthy.
Tom Meara is a Jamestown resident.
