“Today, US Steel announced that it would not be making a $1.5 billion dollar investment in a rolling mill and co-generation plant at their Mon-Valley works. This is what happens when local officials, the Allegheny County Health Dept. and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) kowtow to extreme environmental groups without actually looking at the facts or consider the fall out. This investment would have decreased US Steel’s carbon footprint.
The Allegheny County Health Dept. and the DEP, have both had the applications for permits for 2 years and that includes at least 10 months before COVID. Below is a statement from Pittsburgh Works which is a coalition of trade unions, corporations, workforce development leaders and business.
‘Two years after the company announced plans for this important investment, the Allegheny County Health Department has yet to provide the permits needed to proceed. The result, the elimination of four-million-man hours of construction – approximately 1,000 union trades construction jobs – and putting in peril the jobs of 3,000 members of the United Steelworkers Union and hundreds more at the Pittsburgh headquarters. Add to this the thousands of downstream jobs that will be eliminated. This is an economic, regulatory, and political folly of epic proportions.’
Lt. Governor Fetterman, who actually lives in the shadow of the steel plant, was outwardly supportive of US Steel. I might not agree with him on much, but I do on this one for sure.
What happened today is the result of local government leaders letting radical environmental groups like PennFuture, GASP and Breathe Project, funded in part by elitist Pittsburgh Foundations, bully them into abandoning blue collar workers, the PA Building trades and the very heart of what built America – PITTSBURGH STEEL.”
Erica Clayton Wright
Communications Director for Senate Majority Leader Kim Ward
ewright@pasen.gov
412-334-4856 Mobile