PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE: The Corbett administration already has pitched Shell Oil Co. on a petrochemical cracker plant in Beaver County. Now it has to sell the deal to fellow Republicans, and perhaps more importantly Democrats, to get it done.
At a news conference Thursday, members of the governor’s Cabinet joined with building trade and industrial union leaders and a bipartisan group of Beaver elected officials, to push for speedy approval of $1.65 billion in proposed ethane tax credits over 25 years in this year’s state budget. Without the incentives, they claimed, Pennsylvania could lose the $1 billion plant and thousands of related ethane industry jobs to another state.
“It is very simple. Pennsylvania is either serious about creating jobs or it is not,” said C. Alan Walker, secretary of the Department of Community and Economic Development. If the incentives are rejected, he said, “shame on us and it would be one of the economic tragedies of all time.”.. (more)
EDITOR: Outrageous. First we give away the gas without taxing it. Now we are going to pay to have it refined. How much political donations will Corbett be reaping this time?
