ALJAZEERA: Facing a daunting re-election year, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett has been touting his all-out support for natural gas drilling as a job creator in his state.
But economists and environmentalists are questioning his claim that the industry props up more than 200,000 Pennsylvania jobs. They say that the governor’s administration has greatly inflated the number and that it may be getting lower every day.
A new analysis by The Allentown Morning Call newspaper and published Monday indicates that growth in the industries associated with drilling in the Marcellus Shale — one of the country’s main areas for hydraulic fracturing, or fracking — fell by 29 percent from 2010 to 2013. There are now just under 30,000 that can directly be linked to the Marcellus… (more)