Small Businesses Tied to Marcellus Shale to Get Federal Aid

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.

December 21, 2011 | 11:55 AM

The money will flow through an alphabet soup of federal and state agencies before it gets into the hands of shale entrepreneurs in northeast and north central Pennsylvania. But state officials say the $1 million dollars of federal aid will help create 150 jobs in Bradford, Susquehanna, Sullivan and Wyoming counties.
The Treasury Department’s program, State Small Business Credit Initiative, or SSBCI, gave the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development, or DCED, more than $29 million dollars to distribute throughout the state.
DCED announced Wednesday that the Central Bradford Progress Authority, or CBPA, will get $1 million dollars from that pot. The Progress Authority plans to use the money to provide capitol to small businesses tied to the Marcellus Shale drilling boom.