PA Lt. Gov. Tells Gas Industry to 'Fight Back'

Susan Phillips

Recent Stories

Susan Phillips tells stories about the consequences of political decisions on people's every day lives. She has worked as a reporter for WHYY since 2004. Susan's coverage of the 2008 Presidential election resulted in a story on the front page of the New York Times. In 2010 she traveled to Haiti to cover the earthquake. That same year she produced an award-winning series on Pennsylvania's natural gas rush called "The Shale Game." She received a 2013 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Journalism Award for her work covering natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania. She has also won several Edward R. Murrow awards for her work with StateImpact. In 2013/14 she spent a year at MIT as a Knight Science Journalism Fellow. She has also been a Metcalf Fellow, an MBL Logan Science Journalism Fellow and reported from Marrakech on the 2016 climate talks as an International Reporting Project Fellow. A graduate of Columbia School of Journalism, she earned her Bachelor's degree in International Relations from George Washington University.

August 2, 2011 | 5:32 PM

Scott Detrow / StateImpact Pennsylvania

Lieutenant Governor Jim Cawley presides over a shale commission meeting.

Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor Jim Cawley says he’s frustrated by all the nay-sayers who he says spread misinformation about the natural gas industry. Cawley said every day he picks up a newspaper, they’re reporting on water contamination, while ignoring the good news — jobs. There’s a “large scale epidemic of ‘they’re gonna affect our aquifers,'” said Cawley. “It doesn’t happen.”
At a panel discussion in Philadelphia on natural gas job development, Cawley said the Marcellus Shale will put to rest the terms “rust belt” and “brain drain” for the Keystone State.
Environmentalists fear the rapid increase in drilling activities in the state will lead to polluted waterways and contaminated drinking water. But Cawley, speaking to a small number of business people at the Constitution Center Tuesday, compared the effort to promote the benefits of the industry to a political campaign. “Industry needs to share the good news,” Cawley said. “Fight back.”
Cawley led the Governor’s Marcellus Shale Commission’s work on a recently released report that advises Tom Corbett on how to both encourage and regulate the industry.
Cawley’s three talking points for industry include: thousands of jobs created, hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes paid, and a cheaper, cleaner burning fuel.