HEADLINE: “Pennsylvania Energy Industry Losing Out to Ohio Due to Red Tape”, By JIM WILLIS

The media fuss is hard to miss about today’s Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit being held at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. PA Senator Dave McCormick organized the event

Pennsylvania Energy Industry Losing Out to Ohio Due to Red Tape

ECONOMIC IMPACT | INDUSTRYWIDE ISSUES | OHIO | PENNSYLVANIA | REGULATION | STATEWIDE OH| STATEWIDE PA

July 15, 2025

The media fuss is hard to miss about today’s Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit being held at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. PA Senator Dave McCormick organized the event. Among the attendees will be President Trump, several cabinet secretaries, and other White House officials. Much of the buzz is around $90 billion in AI and energy investments expected to be announced. In preparation for the big event, a roundtable was held yesterday at CNX headquarters in Washington County, PA, to discuss clearing away permitting obstacles and red tape to help PA realize some (if not most) of that $90 billion in investments.

One point made at yesterday’s roundtable spells big trouble for Pennsylvania and presents an opportunity for other states, such as Ohio. Imperial Land Corp. President Brian Temple said this: “I can drive 20 minutes down the road into Ohio and get the permit in a month, month and a half, and it takes 18, 20 months in Pennsylvania.” PA will continue to lose out as long as that’s the case.

The expected tens of billions of dollars of investment and the buzz surrounding Tuesday’s Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit will need to be followed by permitting and regulatory reform that will make Pennsylvania better able to capitalize on opportunities, according to multiple speakers at a roundtable Monday.

The summit, hosted by U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick, will bring together top executives in artificial intelligence and energy as well as President Donald J. Trump and key administration officials for a one-of-a-kind conference at Carnegie Mellon University. They’ll discuss Pennsylvania’s unique pairing of AI know-how with the state’s leadership in natural gas and nuclear energy. And that’s just what the presummit roundtable, sponsored by the Washington County Chamber of Commerce, talked about as well.

“Pennsylvania is poised to be the big winner in the conversation about AI going forward,” said Mike Sommers, president and CEO of the American Petroleum Institute. “You are the perfect state given the amount of energy we have in this state, the world-class universities, and the history of innovation.”

Sommers said beating China in the battle for AI domination was going to take a lot of planning and a lot of innovation.

Two Washington County representatives, state Rep. Tim O’Neal, R-Washington, and state Sen. Camera Bartolotta, R-Washington County, said one of Pennsylvania’s major challenges is how long it takes to get permits for environmental and construction out of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. The time it takes has been a major source of frustration for energy and manufacturers interested in building or expanding here; it was cited as the major reason why United States Steel Corp. passed over the Mon Valley for a state-of-the-art plant in Arkansas in 2021.

“If you can’t get a permit for 18 to 24 months for the bare bones basic anything, we have a big problem,” Bartolotta said.

She credited the Shapiro administration’s new DEP Secretary, Jessica Shirley, for focusing on this challenge diligently but said it needs to continue.

O’Neal said that energy companies have to pay attention to what’s happening in the commonwealth, as he termed it the first line of defense for the industry with the sharply reduced oil and gas activity in Colorado serving as a warning.

“Whether they operate in Pennsylvania or not, they should care about what’s happening in Pennsylvania,” O’Neal said.

Jeff Kotula, president of the Washington County Chamber of Commerce and a statewide advocate for the natural gas industry, noted that investment capital flows to where it’s most welcome.

One of those places it’s welcomed, said Imperial Land Corp. President Brian Temple, has been across the border in Ohio. He said southwestern Pennsylvania has lost projects to Ohio due the quicker and higher levels of regulatory-friendliness there.

“I can drive 20 minutes down the road into Ohio and get the permit in a month, month and a half, and it takes 18, 20 months in Pennsylvania,” Temple said. Among Imperial Land’s projects are a data center that it’s building with Range Resources Corp. in Fort Cherry, which does have all its permits.

Kotula agreed that southwestern Pennsylvania has been losing projects because of a lack of competitiveness compared to Ohio’s big investment and sometimes free land offers. The long lead times for permits also contributes, he said.

“It’s frustrating,” said Jim Lyle, business development manager for engineering firm Moody & Associates.

Another cautionary tale was the decade-long saga of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, which was proposed in 2014 but didn’t become operational until 2024 after years of court battles and had to be approved by Congress.

“We can’t look at this (construction) as an eight to 10 year process,” said Bob Lewis, regional gas marketing director of Range Resources Corp. “AI wants to be here yesterday.”

“MVP is a perfect example of how bad this process has become,” Sommers said. And Stephanie Catarino Wissman, executive director of API Pennsylvania, said it’s not just on the federal side, but also in Pennsylvania state government.

“It’s a domino effect,” she said.*

*Pittsburgh (PA) Business Times/Paul Gough (Jul 14, 2025) – Industry leaders call for faster permitting to boost Pennsylvania’s competitiveness in AI and energy sectors

BOTTOMLINE: “MVP is a perfect example of how bad this process has become,” Sommers said. And Stephanie Catarino Wissman, executive director of API Pennsylvania, said it’s not just on the federal side, but also in Pennsylvania state government.“