A New National Spotlight Shines on Josh Shapiro’s Contested Environmental Record

It was supposed to be a triumphant moment. Five months ago, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro traveled to a union hall in Scranton to announce a new energy plan his administration touted as a “bold vision for Pennsylvania’s energy future.” 

But his speech was interrupted with a searing question from a resident of a Pennsylvania town that became infamous for fracking-related water contamination more than 14 years ago. 

“When are you going to come back to Dimock?” Ray Kemble asked before he was escorted out. “I’ve got no water in the house. You know it, and you threw us under the bus.” 

Manuel Bonder, a spokesperson for the governor, said Shapiro “will never forget the people of Dimock—and he has been working diligently alongside the Public Utilities Commision to ensure the public water line he secured gets built as quickly as possible.” 

The public water line for Dimock residents was part of a plea agreement reached by then-Attorney General Shapiro with the company involved, Coterra Energy, in 2022. Two years later, some Dimock residents still do not have clean running water. Kemble’s anger is not just about the water line, it’s also about the quiet decision by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection to lift a 12-year moratorium on fracking in the town the day after the agreement was announced, allowing Coterra to drill in the area once again. 

Now, with Shapiro reportedly on Vice President Kamala Harris’ shortlist of potential running mates, Kemble and others in Dimock want the American public to know what happened to them—and why they feel betrayed by the governor.

“He couldn’t even look at me,” Kemble said in a recent interview, remembering his attempt to get answers from Shapiro in Scranton. “And he knows who I am.”  

Kemble added: “He’s done everything just the opposite of what he said he was going to do. I mean, everything he’s been doing is for industry. The hell with the people.”

Shapiro’s spokesman said the governor, when he was attorney general, “secured a historic settlement for Pennsylvanians living in Dimock—getting Coterra Energy to finally take responsibility for polluting residents’ water and commit to building a new $16 million public water line to provide clean, reliable drinking water for generations to come.” Bonder added: “The Governor and his Administration have been working aggressively to make good on these commitments and continue delivering for the people of Dimock.”

In a statement at the time of the settlement, a Coterra spokesman said the company “strives to follow best practices, exceed industry standards, and to continue to be a valuable community partner.” Dimock’s water contamination was featured in a 2010 documentary, “Gasland.” One scene showed a resident lighting his tap water on fire.

Kemble and the other Dimock residents who appeared in support of Shapiro at the settlement press conference did not know about the end of the drilling ban, but because of the timing, they believe Shapiro must have been aware. “He paraded us around like puppets,” Kemble said. 

The Scranton incident is one of several examples this year in which Shapiro has had to publicly contend with Pennsylvanians frustrated by what they see as his embrace of fossil fuel interests.

In March, the Delaware Riverkeeper, Maya van Rossum, confronted him about his support for hydrogen fuel hubs in Pennsylvania, one of which will rely on fracked natural gas. The same month, three climate activists were arrested outside his office in Harrisburg as they attempted to meet with the governor about his climate policies and relationship with the oil and gas industry.

From his handling of Dimock to his economic development plan supported by the American Petroleum Institute to a partnership with the fracking company CNX Resources, many environmental activists in the state are disappointed by Shapiro’s track record as governor. That disappointment is magnified by the tough stance he took on oil and gas companies as attorney general.  

Since he became governor in 2023, Shapiro has “radically changed his environmental policy priorities and began to court fossil fuel companies,” Physicians for Social Responsibility Pennsylvania wrote this week in a new fact sheet about Shapiro’s “startling reversal on climate issues.” 

In February 2023, the Conservation Voters of Pennsylvania heralded the election of an “environmental champion” as governor. Less than a year later, the same group was criticizing Shapiro’s economic plan as “a repackaging of the fossil fuel industry’s playbook in Pennsylvania.” Meanwhile, the American Petroleum Institute’s Pennsylvania arm endorsed Shapiro’s “shared goal” of “ leveraging our state’s abundant natural gas resources to help accelerate economic growth.”

One of Shapiro’s signature accomplishments as attorney general—and a key reason for environmentalists’ optimism about his administration—was a comprehensive grand jury report on fracking in Pennsylvania. It concluded in 2020 that the state government had failed to “properly protect the health, safety and welfare of its citizens” during the fracking boom, validating concerns that residents had long voiced.

David Masur, executive director of PennEnvironment, the environmental research and advocacy organization, pointed to Shapiro’s work as attorney general on fracking and his response to the 2023 train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, which occurred on the state border, as two of Shapiro’s achievements on the environment. 

“His response to East Palestine, I thought, came across as aggressive,” he said. “And it fit his attorney general role of ‘I’m the cop on the beat making sure powerful interests don’t run roughshod over everyday Pennsylvanians.’” 

(Some Pennsylvanians affected by the derailment say they have struggled to access medical assistance in the months since the disaster and feel abandoned by elected officials.)

Shapiro is a charismatic speaker and a shrewd political strategist. He’s also popular: polls show that 54 percent of Pennsylvania voters believe he’s done a good or excellent job as governor. These qualities have served him well in a purple state with a divided legislature, and allies say he has succeeded in bringing opposing interests to the negotiating table in a way that rarely happens in contentious Pennsylvania. 

“There’s certainly a lot to like in Gov. Shapiro as a V.P. candidate. He’s from the biggest swing state. He polls very high in the state. He’s an incredible fundraiser,” Masur said. Shapiro’s knack for uniting often-warring factions of the Democratic base is also an asset. “To his credit, he’s done a good job about building a bridge between the labor unions and the environmental community that didn’t exist before.” 

Masur was part of Shapiro’s working group on Pennsylvania’s membership in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, convened to decide whether the state should join the cap-and-trade program that includes 10 other states and works to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power generation. Some environmental and climate organizations attacked the group for its secrecy—its agenda and members’ names were not made public until Inside Climate News unearthed the information—and because its ranks included fossil fuel executives from companies like CNX Resources and Shell. 

The Shapiro administration framed the group as a bipartisan, coalition-building effort between labor, environmentalists and the energy industry. The group supported the idea of a “cap and invest” system for power utilities but did not endorse Pennsylvania’s membership in RGGI, and legal challenges to Pennsylvania’s involvement in the initiative are still pending. Its work led to Shapiro’s energy plan proposal, the Pennsylvania Climate Emissions Reduction Act, which would allow Pennsylvania to “determine its own cap on carbon and invest directly in lowering consumers’ electricity bills.”

The administration counts among Shapiro’s environmental achievements the two planned hydrogen hubs, which it says will create 41,000 jobs in Pennsylvania; a collaboration with CNX on environmental monitoring and chemical disclosures, and the company’s agreement to increase well setbacks near hospitals and schools; and the acceleration of a state program to plug abandoned and orphaned wells, part of a national effort to reduce methane emissions. His administration has also ordered the Department of Environmental Protection to “pursue formal rulemaking and policy changes” related to disclosure requirements for chemicals used in drilling.

“The Shapiro Administration has prioritized protecting Pennsylvanians’ constitutional right to clean air and pure water—drawing down federal funding and cutting red tape to build up clean energy infrastructure in the Commonwealth, holding polluters accountable, and delivering millions of dollars for affected communities,” Bonder said in a statement. 

The administration highlighted multi-million dollar settlements with Shell and agrichemical giant Monsanto over environmental damages and pollution violations; work by the Department of Environmental Protection to improve and review its complaint process and registry system for oil and gas production; and investments of more than $500 million into clean water infrastructure in the state.

One of Shapiro’s most significant climate accomplishments came earlier this week, when he appeared in Allegheny County with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan to announce $396 million in federal grants for Pennsylvania under the Inflation Reduction Act. This money will go to a program called RISE PA, which stands for Reducing Industrial Sector Emissions in Pennsylvania. 

The goal of the program is to “accelerate decarbonization” across the state by closing funding gaps for “hundreds of facilities” while also creating jobs and improving air quality. In a 2023 proposal, the Department of Environmental Protection wrote that the program would aim to reduce industrial emissions by 5 percent by funding projects ranging from energy efficiency and electrification to carbon capture and low-carbon fuels.

On July 22, Shapiro signed two energy-related bills into law. The first one created a “Solar for Schools” grant program that will help fund solar panels at Pennsylvania schools. The second bill, sponsored by Republican state Sen. Gene Yaw, a longtime supporter of the oil and gas industry who used to represent Dimock before redistricting changes in 2022, will establish “a regulatory framework for carbon capture, utilization and sequestration.”

Environmentalists viewed some of these accomplishments in a very different light than the administration and its supporters. For them, Shapiro’s “all of the above” energy strategy is a dangerous capitulation to fossil fuel interests at a time when the impacts of climate change are worsening in Pennsylvania, contributing to heat waves, flooding and storms. In July 2023, the Center for Climate Integrity estimated that municipal governments in Pennsylvania will need to spend more than $15 billion before 2040 in order to adapt to climate change and protect residents from extreme weather.

Environmentalists see the CNX partnership as a “slap in the face” after years spent struggling to raise the alarm about the harms of fracking. They wonder how the governor could trust a company he had once charged with violating the Air Pollution Control Act. And they question why the 2023 results of a $3 million study commissioned by the state Department of Health to look at the impacts of fracking on public health seem to have been buried even as the governor praised CNX for allowing access to its wells to “make it possible for communities to understand the facts about natural gas development.” Through its participation in the partnership, CNX said it was seeking to “create mutual trust which can serve as the basis for cooperation and real environmental and economic progress in the Commonwealth.”

Both hydrogen hub projects have been controversial, and activists say these U.S. Department of Energy-backed proposals are a “false solution” to climate change. The western Pennsylvania hydrogen hub, ARCH2, is supported by CNX Resources and other companies with ties to the fossil fuel industry. It will mainly make “blue” hydrogen from natural gas and rely on carbon capture technology to reduce emissions from the production process. 

MACH2, the eastern Pennsylvania proposal, says it will use water and nuclear power to make hydrogen. But it has been criticized for excluding from the planning process the environmental justice communities the hub is supposed to benefit. Since the Delaware Riverkeeper Network’s protest, MACH2 has hosted listening sessions for community members to weigh in and ask questions about the project. 

Pennsylvanian activists see hydrogen and carbon capture as distractions from much-needed investments in clean energy sources like solar. In the clean energy transition, Pennsylvania is far behind. 

It ranks 45th in the country for electricity generation from renewable energy, 50th for growth in renewable energy since 2013 and 50th in energy savings from efficiency improvements. 

Pennsylvania ranked fourth for total carbon dioxide emissions in the United States in 2021 and is one of the country’s highest emitters of methane, a greenhouse gas that is 28 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

Whether any of this criticism will factor into Harris’ choice on a running mate remains to be seen. If Shapiro were running in a national Democratic primary, his record on climate and fracking would matter more from a political standpoint, Masur said. But in a general election, his middle-of-the-road positions on energy and the environment are likely to help him with swing voters. 

If he joins the ticket or not, he is already seen as a persuasive voice for the Democrats in Pennsylvania. On Monday, he will campaign for Harris with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in suburban Philadelphia, a crucial battleground for the presidential race.

A lifelong Republican, Dimock’s Kemble said he voted for Shapiro for attorney general and governor. But after everything that’s happened in Dimock since 2022, he will not vote for him again, and he plans to vote for Robert Kennedy Jr. in the presidential election regardless of Harris’ choice of running mate. He has also changed his voting registration from Republican to Independent.

“[Kennedy] cares about the environment. He cares about the people, and I’m sorry, but I don’t see that on either the Republican side or the Democratic side,” Kemble said. “I don’t see anything in there where they’re thinking about the people at all. They’re just looking at what they can do with industry.” 

Victoria Switzer, another Dimock resident who appeared with Shapiro at the press conference in 2022, said she would still support Harris even if she chooses Shapiro as her vice presidential pick. But Switzer said her enthusiasm for Harris’ candidacy would be significantly dampened. 

“This will ruin it for me. It will diminish the most joyous thing,” she said. “I have firsthand experience where I was used, betrayed, lied to, and used as bait. So my experience [with Shapiro] is personal.” 

Like others in Dimock, Switzer would like to move away from northeastern Pennsylvania to escape the health effects she says she experiences living in the shale fields. The water contamination on her property has so far made that impossible. 

For Switzer, Dimock is important not because it’s an anomaly but because it’s typical. Earlier that day, she read an article about a family in Pennsylvania’s Cameron County who weren’t told that their water had been contaminated by thousands of gallons of spilled fracking wastewater. 

From her perspective, little has changed in the way the state government deals with the oil and gas industry or in how the industry operates since Dimock’s water was contaminated all those years ago. Her hopes that Shapiro would be different from his predecessors have not been borne out.

“What is the number?” she asked. “What is the number that Shapiro is willing to sacrifice? How many families have to have their lives destroyed?”