Kevin Kane: Pennsylvania Democrats must stop playing politics and unleash American energy
Democrats have a demographics problem. In November, voters, even those who historically back Democrats, shifted support to President Donald Trump, Sen. Dave McCormick, and other down-ballot Republicans. Election Day delivered a clear message to Democrats: change your progressive ways — or else.
Yet, Democrats in the Keystone State refuse to listen. Rather than respect voter pleas for common sense, Pennsylvania Democrats — especially those in the state House of Representatives — prefer playing political games, namely their manipulation of the lower chamber’s committee makeup for the new 2025–26 session.
On Jan. 7, Pennsylvania House leadership announced the split of the Environmental Resources and Energy Committee into two new standing committees: the Energy Committee (chaired by state Rep. Elizabeth Fiedler) and the Environmental and Natural Resources Protection Committee (chaired by state Rep. Greg Vitali). Democrats claim they intend to increase legislative output and address voter concerns more intentionally.
But this procedural shuffle has more to do with performative politics. House Democrats will maneuver legislation through these committees to appease two core constituencies: environmental extremists and labor unions.
The recent resurrection of the Blue-Green Caucus evidences the value of both groups to the Democratic coalition. The caucus, coincidentally chaired by Fiedler, seeks to blend the special interests of unreliable “green” energy and worker unionization. In April, the group released an eleven-point legislative agenda, which includes enacting prevailing wage for green-energy infrastructure projects and subsidizing solar panels for Pennsylvania schools.
However, this labor-environmental coalition is fraught. Traditionally, environmentalists seek heavy-handed regulations on Pennsylvania’s robust energy sector. Meanwhile, labor unions purport to protect union jobs in the state’s leading industry, often threatened by regulatory overreach. This conflict boiled over when several prominent labor unions fought against Pennsylvania’s entry into the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), the multistate compact that would impose an industry-wide tax, threaten jobs, and inflate utility bills.
So rather than convince these divergent groups to play nice in the political sandbox, Pennsylvania Democrats opted to divide and conquer. By splitting the committees, House Democrats can introduce signaling bills that placate their competing special interests. Without conflicting parties, Democrats can advance meaningless bills that neither address voter concerns nor have a snowball’s chance in hell of becoming law.
But that’s not what voters want. Going into Election Day, poll after poll demonstrated that cost-of-living issues — especially rising energy costs — were at the top of voters’ minds. Considering four of five Pennsylvanians reported their energy bills increased last year, how lawmakers have tackled energy costs influenced voters.
Voters had to choose between two competing messages. The Republican call to “drill, baby, drill,” encouraging a rapid expansion in energy extraction, production, and distribution, against the Democrat push, especially in its progressive wing, for policies akin to the Green New Deal, such as fracking bans and more subsidies for costly part-time energy like solar and wind.
Between the two, voters nationwide delivered an unambiguous message to lawmakers: unleash the energy sector. Rather than continue down the pathway carved by former President Joe Biden (marked by bans on liquefied natural gas and increased subsidies for unreliable energy), voters are now, to quote former Vice President Kamala Harris, “unburdened by what has been.”
This nationwide message is ever more apparent in the Keystone State. For far too long, Pennsylvania lawmakers have played footsie with expensive green initiatives — everything from RGGI to Gov. Josh Shapiro’s personal green energy pipe dreams: the Pennsylvania Climate Emissions Reduction Act (PACER) and the Pennsylvania Reliable Energy Sustainability Standard (PRESS).
The November election shows Pennsylvanians have little interest in crackpot solutions and bloated government. Instead, voters want an economic reprieve to their energy woes. To address those needs, lawmakers must enact meaningful regulatory reform that expedites permitting. Moreover, they must reject all progressive environmental schemes like RGGI, PACER, and PRESS that make energy less reliable and more expensive. Anything less ignores the will of the people and the unambiguous energy mandate they handed Harrisburg.
Energy is vital to Pennsylvania’s future success. While industry treads water throughout the Rust Belt, Pennsylvania’s energy sector keeps the commonwealth afloat. Rather than virtue signal and fiddle with procedural politics, House Democrats must work across the aisle to deliver lower energy costs by freeing Pennsylvania’s energy sector.
Kevin Kane is the Director of Legislative Strategy at the Commonwealth Foundation, Pennsylvania’s free-market think tank.