Ahead of tomorrow's presidential election, a nonprofit is raising concerns Project 2025 and its proposed rollback of federal aid could disrupt economic growth in Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley.

Pennsylvania is set to receive more than $15 billion in Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding for more than 450 projects.

David Kieve, president of EDF Action, the advocacy partner of the Environmental Defense Fund, said the Inflation Reduction Act has made Pennsylvania cleaner and greener, and is boosting the Lehigh Valley economy.

"They're incentivizing and attracting private sector investment to communities like the Lehigh Valley," Kieve pointed out. "Mack Trucks has received $208 million in IRA funding, which is going to create nearly 300 union jobs."

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law has allocated $11.1 billion for transportation, including roads, bridges, public transit, ports, and airports and $859 million for water infrastructure.

Kieve pointed out many people would feel the effects of Project 2025, including more than 200,000 in Lehigh Valley's Hispanic community. The proposed cuts could result in lost jobs and investments from recent federal legislation.

"These are communities that have sort of had fallen on hard times because of President Trump's spectacular mishandling of the COVID pandemic, but that are digging out and that are recovering," Kieve noted. "Project 2025 and the Donald Trump agenda would pull the rug right out from under those communities."

Pennsylvania is set to receive around $172 million over five years from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to expand electric vehicle charging. Allentown, within the Lehigh Valley, has 122 public charging ports, most of which are Level 2, which are more powerful than home units and charge vehicles more quickly. Some offer free charging.

Some Republican lawmakers, including Rep. Nick Begich, R-Alaska, are considering repealing the Inflation Reduction Act's clean energy incentives. Supporters of the measure say cuts would threaten jobs in Alaska. The efforts come as Alaska's liquid natural gas supplies will not be enough to meet demand in the state. That means the state may have to begin importing gas causing prices to rise.

Jennifer Hyde, federal infrastructure coordinator at the Alaska Center, hoped clean energy projects could begin benefitting the state before the crisis takes hold.

"We're hoping that communities can seize on IRA funds in order to actualize on solar projects, on wind projects, on hydro projects, on a number of other alternatives before this crisis happens," she explained.

Begich and other Republicans signed a letter arguing that the clean energy subsidies in the IRA will undermine America's energy dominance - and inflate energy costs. But Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, has supported the clean energy incentives.

Anchorage business owner Ben Kellie is concerned about the impacts of the possible repeal of clean energy incentives on Alaska's economy, and said the incentives can mean major savings for Alaska families.

"This isn't just saving a few cents off of a bill. A lot of these projects are in communities where people are paying over a thousand dollars to heat and light small homes off the road system," Kellie said. "This is real money that not only stays in the community and circulates, but helps families make ends meet through cold winters."

In 2023, about a quarter of all Alaska energy came from renewable sources.

A bill before Indiana legislators that would have prevented city officials from requesting energy information from large commercial buildings failed in this year's legislative session.

One nonprofit believes if Senate Bill 197/House Bill 1389 had become law, Hoosiers would have faced higher utility bills. The Thriving Buildings Program relies on utility usage data gathered between 2021 and 2025 to help lower utility bills.

Paula Brooks, justice director for the nonprofit Hoosier Environmental Council, said conversations between community stakeholders, public officials and residents about building environments are key to the program's success.

"It gave building owners the opportunity to benchmark -- which is, make comparisons of their energy and water usage -- to be able to identify ways to save money on utility costs and most importantly, improve the air quality, reduce carbon emissions," she explained.

A building environment consists of building and construction materials and is a major contributor to global gas emissions. With the program's collected data, it is predicted that public health savings in Indianapolis could reach $77 million by 2030. Indianapolis is responsible for 66% of community-wide greenhouse gas emissions.

Brooks applauds the Thriving Buildings Program because residents feel their voices are being heard as their communities develop. But these voices also oppose President Donald Trump's recent executive orders to build more coal plants to boost electricity generation, and to ensure the EPA is assisting in promoting America's energy security.

Brooks believes there is another alternative to using coal as a power source.

"Renewables is not only the future, but it's happening now. This distribution model that we have now, where the energy companies hold all the power, it's only about 75 years old," she continued.

Renewable energy creates opportunities to look at new energy delivery models or "energy democracy," with solar for microgrids. So, rather than having a huge power plant somewhere, she noted, the electricity could be in a community and owned by the community, while contributing to the electric generation for industrial use.


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A new report from the Ohio River Valley Institute argued the oil and gas industry, not taxpayers, should cover the cost of plugging up hundreds of thousands of abandoned oil wells across Appalachia.

Plugging wells in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia could cost nearly $40 billion, with most of the burden coming from shale wells.

Dwayne Purvis, founder and principal consultant at Purvis Energy Advisors in Fort Worth, Texas, and co-author of the report, said he analyzed the Ohio River Valley along with other states, finding old shale wells are often unable to fund their own decommissioning.

"Of course, there are some shale wells are getting older and depleting, producing at slower rates, and even some that are shut in or marginal," Purvis explained. "What we did in this study that was new for the first time, was to offer ideas on how financial assurance reform can address this disparity."

Purvis pointed out there are currently more than 265,000 unplugged non-shale wells across the three states too, many of which also pose environmental risks. He added hundreds of thousands more were plugged decades ago but often to outdated standards, meaning they may still leak.

Purvis noted the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law jump-started efforts to plug oil wells but the funding was never meant to be permanent. He contended operators should pay for decommissioning the wells but acknowledged many cannot afford to do it.

"The next best option is what we've offered, that it needs to come from, the money for decommissioning, needs to come from other companies in the oil and gas business, who do have the income necessary to cover the liabilities of the industry as a whole in order to protect the public," Purvis outlined.

According to the report in the three states studied, Purvis' proposal would directly increase oil and gas employment by an estimated 32% and create more than 19,000 new jobs.


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