News

July 5, 2008

Carney discusses energy

Northeastern Pennsylvania can be the Saudi Arabia of alternative energy, he says.

To answer the country’s energy woes, U.S. Rep. Chris Carney said the United States should follow other nations’ lead by expanding mass transportation.

He also said the U.S. already has advanced alternative-fuel technology that it should leverage and that Northeastern Pennsylvania is situated to become the next energy-production epicenter.

Carney, D-Dimock Township, voted for three bills that passed the House last week that would potentially provide short-term relief and subsidize mass-transit prices, but he’s eyeing far bigger changes.

“We’re really going headlong into … coming back to the age of trains. What is old is new again,” he said on Friday. “We need to take some cues from other places on the globe that have a robust highway network but also have a robust mass transit system.”

Such a system benefits both the economy and the environment, he said. He noted that the railroad beds remain and that “it’s actually a reasonably inexpensive process to lay track. It’s a lot less expensive that buying and building roads …”

In alternative-energy technology, however, America sets the bar, he said, but hasn’t been able to leverage that.

“There hasn’t been the incentive to do it. Now we have it,” he said.

And thanks to its assortment of energy assets – from biofuels production and research to wind resources to coal and gas reserves – there’s “no reason that NEPA can’t be the new Saudi Arabia of alternative energy,” he said.

“It’s time we take a long view on what we need as a nation. And basing our economy solely on petroleum is not taking the long view,” he said.

Like Carney, U.S. Rep. Paul Kanjorski, D-Nanticoke, supported the three bills. One would suspend deliveries to the nation’s oil reserve to increase the oil supply available to the public. Another calls on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to use its available powers to curtail speculation in futures pricing that some believe have an effect in driving up consumer prices.

The final bill would provide $1.7 billion for mass-transit grants for the next two years. Carney acknowledged the funding “will have a more immediate impact” in urban areas.

But in a news release, Kanjorski noted that ridership of Luzerne County Transportation Authority’s system has already surpassed last year’s numbers, indicating non-urban counties also can benefit from mass-transit improvements.

While encouraging alternative-fuel development, Carney and Kanjorski also support increased domestic fossil-fuel exploration and production. Carney voted for a bill that would increase financial penalties for drillers who lease public land for exploration but fail to explore. Kanjorski has voiced support for opening additional lands to exploration, including coastal areas and the contentious Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.

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