Green activists could torpedo Trump’s appeal to Pennsylvania ‘Reagan Democrats’

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What was the difference between Mitt Romney and President Trump in Pennsylvania?

Unlike other swing states such as Wisconsin and Michigan, Pennsylvania did not become a right-to-work state prior to the 2016 elections. In the Midwest, the inroads Trump made with blue-collar workers could partially be explained by the fact that union leaders could no longer collect dues from rank-and-file members who did not agree with their politics.

In Pennsylvania, a better explanation for Trump’s unlikely victory might be the appeal he had with a broad cross section of Pennsylvania residents who benefit from what some aptly describe as the “natural gas revolution.”

The Marcellus Shale formation, which cuts across a large part of the state, holds roughly 84 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. In just one year alone, in 2010, the Marcellus Shale Coalition reports drilling in the shale formation contributed more than $11 billion to Pennsylvania’s economy while supporting about 140,000 jobs. The economic benefits have only accelerated since then, and by running and delivering on a campaign promise to deregulate the energy sector, Trump pulled in a bloc of voters who did not turn out for Romney.

In a previous era, they would have been described as “Reagan Democrats.” These are blue-collar, “working-class” voters who are socially conservative, economically protectionist, and fiercely patriotic. That’s what the Wall Street Journal and other media outlets found based on their analysis of the 2016 election returns. They typically belong to unions and historically vote Democratic, but, at the height of the Cold War and in the midst of an economic recession, they turned to Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. They don’t exactly fit in with the far-left drift of today’s Democratic Party, especially on cultural issues, and they’re not on board with the free traders in the Republican establishment. But, with Trump, they have found a home that greatly complicates the electoral map for Democrats in a state they must win back to have a chance in this year’s elections. That’s why left-leaning super PACs such as American Bridge 21st Century and Priorities USA Action and George Soros-backed groups such as Democracy Alliance are targeting Pennsylvania.

But the money from inside the state also has a story to tell with big implications for the durability of the energy sector and for the 2020 elections. There’s history here that involves a former Democratic president who had the same electoral appeal as Reagan and Trump. John F. Kennedy narrowly won Pennsylvania over Richard Nixon in the 1960 election, and it was Kennedy who helped to create a multistate government commission that is now populated with green activists and funded with special interests that now jeopardize Pennsylvania’s natural gas industry.

Taxpayers, property owners, and business owners living and working in the Delaware River Basin, which includes Pennsylvania, should take a good, hard look at who their government commissioners recruit to serve as advisers.

Chances are they are not on the list.

That’s because the government commission Kennedy helped establish in 1961 to monitor water quality on behalf of the public interest has morphed into a tool for well-heeled special interests working to advance anti-energy policies.

This much is made clear by the money trail that flows out of a private, grant-making institution into the coffers of environmental activists who populate the commission’s advisory committees. As it happens, the commission receives donations from that same private source, which is working to steer regulatory policy throughout the region. The Delaware River Basin cuts across four states, covering almost 14,000 square miles, and includes 42 counties and 838 municipalities, according to government figures. So, there’s a lot at stake.

Kennedy signed off on legislation in 1961 to create an interstate compact among Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York for the purpose of managing water quality in the Delaware River Basin. The end result of the compact was the Delaware River Basin Commission. All four of the compact’s state governors serve as members alongside the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. In December, the DRBC, as it is known, announced the creation of a new advisory committee on climate change. There are now a total of seven advisory committees offering their input into an agency that has clashed in court with Pennsylvania landowners who have reason to believe the commission has been overstepping its authority.

Wayne Land and Mineral Group LLC achieved a significant victory in July 2018 when the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower court ruling dismissing the company’s legal challenge against a moratorium the commission imposed on hydraulic fracturing in 2010. The commission’s moratorium affects Pennsylvania’s Wayne and Pike counties. While the rest of the state continues to benefit from innovative drilling techniques that make it possible to access oil and gas deposits from the Marcellus Shale, average citizens in the northeastern corner of Pennsylvania have been cut out from joining the natural gas revolution.

The good news is, there is a new, online, user-friendly tool available to those same Pennsylvania residents and others who would like to know more about who is funding the regulatory schemes that jeopardize their economic well-being.

The Institute for Energy Research, a nonprofit group based in Washington that favors free-market solutions in the energy sector, recently launched Big Green Inc., which makes it possible to draw the connection between the grants from 14 foundations and almost 2,000 activist groups in all 50 states.

So far, Big Green has identified more than $4 billion dollars put in circulation for the benefit of environmental groups that favor expensive climate change litigation and burdensome regulation that intrudes on the free market while ignoring scientific findings. The Philadelphia-based William Penn Foundation is one of several grant-makers that figures into this equation. The foundation has donated hundreds of millions of dollars to the DRBC and the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, a nonprofit green activist group based in Bristol, Pennsylvania, that occupies advisory positions within the DRBC.

Big Green Inc. shows that the William Penn Foundation donated $259,500 to the Riverkeeper in 2010, $259,600 in 2011, $259,600 in 2012, $290,000 in 2013, and $914,000 in 2015. The foundation’s records show that it donated $1.4 million to the Riverkeeper in 2019.

But, there’s an added twist. The William Penn Foundation’s records show it is also a major funder of the DRBC itself. The foundation donated $82,000 to the DRBC in 2011 and 2013, $649,000 in 2012, and $530,000 in 2019.

“I have to point out the irony here,” Tom Pyle, president of the Institute for Energy Research, said in an interview. “Energy industry groups are continually labeled as front groups for corporations by these very same environmental activists, and now we know they are nothing more than hypocrites. Shining a light on who’s behind them is the goal of Big Green Inc.”

What exactly is the William Penn Foundation, and what is it all about?

Influence Watch, a project of the Capital Research Center in D.C., identifies the foundation as a major funder of “a variety of left-of-center and environmentalists projects, as well as local projects in the city of Philadelphia and surrounding areas.”

The Delaware Riverkeeper Network stands out as one of the foundation’s major beneficiaries.

“The William Penn Foundation, a major supporter of Pennsylvania’s anti-coal and gas activists, is Delaware Riverkeeper’s 2nd-biggest donor and has given $1.7 million to the group since 2010,” Hayden Ludwig, an investigator with Capital Research Center, said in an email. “The Penn Foundation, like Delaware Riverkeeper, quietly supports left-wing environmentalism and funnels millions of dollars to the ‘education’ arms of the League of Conservation Voters, Sierra Club, and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.”

So, who is the No. 1 donor to the Riverkeeper Network?

That prize belongs to the Woodtiger Fund, based in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, which has donated almost $4 million to the Riverkeeper in recent years. The fund is operated by the descendants of Vice President Henry Wallace, who served under President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

What happens next in the Delaware River Basin depends in large part on what the courts have to say about the commission’s regulatory reach and how the voters respond to well-organized, well-funded green activists from inside and outside Pennsylvania.

For the moment, Pennsylvania is second only to Texas in dry natural gas production. “Reagan Democrats” could play a role in keeping it that way.

Kevin Mooney (@KevinMooneyDC) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is an investigative reporter in D.C. who writes for several national publications.

Correction: This piece previously said “The Delaware River Basin cuts across four states, covering almost 14 square miles.” The correct number is 14,000 square miles.

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