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COMMONWEALTH, Volume 19, Issue 1 (2017). © 2017 The Pennsylvania Political Science Association.  
ISSN 2469-7672 (online). http://dx.doi.org/10.15367/com.v19i1.130. All rights reserved.

An Introduction to the Special Issue  
on Energy and the Environment

CHRISTOPHER BORICK
Special Issue Editor

Pennsylvania has had a long and prominent history in the area of energy 
extraction. From the dawn of the American oil industry in Titusville 
during the mid- nineteenth century to the contemporary expansion of 

hydraulic fracturing throughout the Commonwealth, Pennsylvania has regu-
larly been at the center of energy innovation in the United States. But as oil, 
coal, and gas have been important drivers of the state’s economy for centu-
ries, the extraction of fossil fuels has left a legacy of environmental damage 
throughout the Keystone State. From acidic mine drainage into Pennsylva-
nia’s streams to spills of chemicals from gas extraction efforts into the Com-
monwealth’s rivers, environmental degradation has often accompanied the 
economic benefits associated with the abundance of energy sources that lie 
beneath the state.

The confluence of abundant energy resources and environmental dam-
age from energy extraction has regularly been the focus of political entities 
in the state and has resulted in an array of polices that have sought to both 
promote and regulate energy production in the state. The recent expansion 
of hydraulic fracturing—or fracking, as it is commonly known—highlights 
these simultaneous policy efforts. Policies such as 2012’s Act 13 have allowed 
for widespread use of fracking activities throughout the Commonwealth 
while simultaneously establishing regulatory frameworks for minimizing the 



2 Christopher BoriCk

environmental and health risks associated with hydraulic fracturing. Act 13’s 
design has received significant public attention and considerable media scru-
tiny but fairly limited scholarly coverage. Other areas of Pennsylvania energy 
policy, such as the state’s unique renewable energy standards and its decision 
not to join with neighboring states in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative 
(RGGI), have also received modest attention from scholars.

This special issue of COMMONWEALTH begins to fill this relative pau-
city of state- focused research by providing readers with a greatly enhanced 
understanding of the complex issues that define energy and environmental 
policy in contemporary Pennsylvania. This dive into energy and environ-
mental policy in the Keystone State begins with a number of engaging pieces 
on the most prominent issue of the era—hydraulic fracturing. First, Rachel 
L. Hampton and Barry G. Rabe, of the University of Michigan, provide an 
in- depth analysis of Pennsylvania’s unique policy response to the arrival of 
fracking in the state over the past decade. In particular, Hampton and Rabe 
provide valuable insight into why Pennsylvania has opted to forgo the types of 
energy extraction taxes that other states have made key components of their 
fiscal policy structures.

Philip J. Harold and Tony Kerzmann, of Robert Morris University, con-
tinue the examination of fracking in the Commonwealth with a thorough 
overview of public attitudes and preferences regarding this major addition 
to life in Pennsylvania. They find that state residents have responded to the 
expansion of fracking with increased awareness and highly divided levels of 
support for this means of natural gas extraction. Building on this examina-
tion of public opinion toward fracking, Erick Lachapelle, of the University of 
Montreal, contributes an engaging piece that compares perceptions of frack-
ing among residents of Pennsylvania and New York. Lachapelle’s study finds 
alignment between the policy preferences of Pennsylvanians and New York-
ers and their states’ extremely varied policy approaches regarding hydraulic 
fracturing.

While the expansion of fracking in Pennsylvania has certainly been the 
most prominent aspect of energy policy in the state over the past decade, 
renewable energy development has also been a feature of policy develop-
ment in Harrisburg. But contrary to the state efforts to manage the meteoric 
growth of fracking, policy makers have explored (albeit with modest success) 
avenues to enhance the growth of renewable energy sources such as wind 
and solar. Sarah Banas Mills, of the University of Michigan, examines the 
recent drought of wind energy development in Pennsylvania during a period 
in which wind power has grown substantially across the United States. Mills’s 
analysis suggests that local land- use regulations may be more responsible than 



An Introduction to the Special Issue on Energy and the Environment  3

failures of state- level renewable energy policy for the lack of new wind power 
facilities in the Keystone State.

As Mills provides evidence that concentration of land- use powers at the 
local level in Pennsylvania is a key factor for the recent decline in expan-
sion of wind power facilities in the state, market forces emerge as possibly a 
bigger driver behind the relatively slow growth of solar power in the Com-
monwealth. Somayeh Youssefi, of the University of Maryland, and Patrick 
L. Gurian, of Drexel University, provide a powerful case that Pennsylvania’s 
efforts to incentivize the generation of solar energy have been limited by mar-
ket factors that have made the state’s tax credits insufficient to increase devel-
opment. Youssefi and Gurian offer elegant policy modifications that could 
remedy the struggles to grow solar energy options in the state within the 
broader constraints of a regional energy market.

Finally, this special edition of COMMONWEALTH concludes with 
invaluable perspective on environmental governance in Pennsylvania during 
a period of tremendous partisan conflict. John Arway, director of the Penn-
sylvania Fish and Boat Commission, provides insight into the challenges of 
protecting the Keystone State’s spectacular array of waterways and aquatic 
wildlife amid the partisan strife that has consumed the state capitol over the 
past decade. Arway’s experiences in his challenging position and his call for 
more cooperation between “technocrats, bureaucrats, and politicians on both 
sides of the aisle” provide a well- suited conclusion to the broader themes 
explored in this issue.

Christopher Borick is a professor of political science and the director of the Institute of 
Public Opinion at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania. He has worked in 
government positions at the federal and county levels and has published numerous books 
and scholarly articles on environmental and energy policy, public opinion, and electoral 
politics. He has co-directed the National Survey on Energy and the Environment since 
2008.






