ERIE, Pa. — Grilled rooster breast, child tomatoes and couscous have been served for lunch on the 2024 Shale Insight Conference this week.
So was Democratic Sen. Bob Casey.
For three days, oil and fuel employees from Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia gathered in Erie to community and talk about the way forward for their trade, from new drilling expertise to geopolitics.
The senator and his Republican challenger, Dave McCormick, each made their pitches on this northwestern Pennsylvania heart Thursday to the fracking trade, which is important to the financial system within the battleground state.
A swath of current polls finds McCormick closing in on Casey; a Monmouth University survey launched Friday exhibits the Democrat with only a 4-point lead amongst registered voters.
While McCormick got here in particular person to ship his imaginative and prescient of power dominance, Casey confirmed face through prerecorded video.
Among trade brass, there was no contest.
“If you don’t have a seat at the table, you’re on the menu. And McCormick just ate him up,” attendee Jim Milleson advised The Post.
Milleson, president of the Ohio Valley Energy Association, is a Democrat and stated he’d vote for Casey if he lived in Pennsylvania.
Still, the no-show senator didn’t do himself any favors with frackers this week.
“I was disappointed Casey didn’t show up,” he added.
In his on-screen screed, Casey paid lip service to the oil and natural-gas trade for creating good-paying jobs and selling US power independence.
He additionally emphasised tax credit geared toward incentivizing the power trade to open up store in natural-gas and coal-mining communities and challenged the Biden-Harris administration to broaden hydrogen-production tax credit.
“I’ll keep pushing, pushing hard the administration until they get this right,” Casey stated.
But the video ended with out applause, and attendees advised The Post each the message and the medium left them unimpressed.
“I viewed his speech and his support of the industry as mainly a façade,” stated Nick Hannan, who works in designing oil and fuel rigs in central Pennsylvania.
He admitted he didn’t suppose extremely of Casey prior.
“He didn’t seem genuine. He definitely was reading. He was swaying back and forth,” stated Curt Brooks, who works in oil and fuel advertising in Monroeville, Pa.
Milleson suspects Casey despatched a video assuming attendees wouldn’t vote for him within the first place.
“You can’t make a difference if you’re not willing to come. He said the right things, but the message was not received.”
McCormick, however, confirmed up in full pressure Thursday, launched to the group as an Iraq War veteran with a sterling profession spanning authorities and the non-public sector.
He took to the rostrum swinging.
“I had the opportunity to see Senator Casey phone in, and I am happy to see him making an energy transition,” he advised the a whole bunch within the corridor.
“Don’t believe it.”
McCormick additionally resurrected Vice President Kamala Harris’s previous pledge to ban hydraulic fracturing, the process that makes use of water, sand or chemical substances to extract oil and pure fuel from underground rock formations.
Pennsylvania is America’s second-largest natural-gas producer, behind Texas. Fracking helps round 123,000 jobs within the Keystone State and spurred $41 billion in financial exercise in 2022.
Vying for Pennsylvania’s 19 electoral votes this November, the veep now says she is not going to ban the fractious apply.
And whereas oil manufacturing beneath the Biden-Harris staff has lastly surpassed that beneath former President Donald Trump, the administration blocked the Keystone XL pipeline and paused liquified-natural-gas exports into international markets — including gas to McCormick’s hearth.
“Casey has endorsed this travesty,” McCormick stated, citing the Democratic incumbent’s document voting with the Biden-Harris administration.
McCormick laid out his daring power plans: slash regulation and reform allowing, help nuclear energy alongside pure fuel, restore clean-energy provide chains and improve cross-border power flows.
“America, led by Pennsylvania, must become the world’s most energy-dominant nation,” he proclaimed. “North America can and should be an energy powerhouse that can compete head to head with OPEC.”
Much prefer it started, McCormick’s speech concluded with roaring applause.
“It was like a sports team playing in their home stadium,” Milleson stated.
