The state’s abundant natural resources call into question which side Shapiro will take.
An argument over a coal mining project in Pennsylvania will reveal Governor Josh Shapiro’s priorities as he navigates energy politics ahead of the upcoming fall election.
An environmental group in Melcroft, Pennsylvania is fighting against a coal mining project led by Robindale Energy & Associated Cos. The dispute began in January 2024 when activists petitioned regulators to preemptively declare 11,000 acres off-limits for mining.
The activists were attempting to undermine expansion plans by a coal company under Robindale Energy & Associated Cos. The firm’s affiliates have received tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer- and ratepayer-funded subsidies in recent years.
CEO D. Scott Kroh and his sons are major campaign donors to Governor Shapiro and Pennsylvania Republican lawmakers. The dispute offers a glimpse into how Shapiro plans to balance his politics with environmentalists and energy production.
Robindale’s coal company, LCT Energy, lobbied the state to reject the request coming from the activists. After consulting Shapiro’s office, environmental regulators rejected the request.
The rejection brought litigation, which offers even more insight into how Shapiro plans to navigate the situation ahead of another gubernatorial election and a possible 2028 Democratic presidential campaign.
The dispute comes as President Trump has prioritized domestic energy production across the United States, especially in Pennsylvania where resources are abundant and demand is higher than ever before.
Emails show that regulators wanted to reject the request from Mountain Watershed Association in Melcroft as legally deficient, but not before receiving permission from Shapiro’s team.
“We are looking for Gov’s Office approval,” wrote Max Schultz, deputy policy director for energy resources at the Department of Environmental Protection, in an email to administration officials dated February 14, 2024. Shapiro’s deputy secretary of policy and planning, Jacob Finkel, was a recipient of the email.
In a statement, Shapiro’s press secretary Rosie Lapowsky did not answer questions about whether anyone in that office granted the approval requested by DEP, or if political considerations played a role in the petition review.
Lapowsky said that with regard to the separate permitting process, DEP makes decisions “based on the applicable statutes and regulations.”
“To insinuate that any different process is followed would be completely false and irresponsible,” she added.
Governor Shapiro has previously endorsed an “all of the above” energy strategy that calls for investing in clean technologies while continuing to use fossil fuels.
Shapiro withdrew Pennsylvania from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a multistate compact that places a cap on power plants’ carbon emissions and requires operators to pay for them. However, the governor also proposed his own plan to modernize Pennsylvania’s grid, which would include the state setting its own cap on carbon emissions and requiring plants to buy credits to pollute.
“We need to harness our energy and our natural resources – do it in a way that protects our public health, our public safety, our environment. I think we can do all of that and create lots of jobs, and bring down the cost of energy,” Shapiro said in November.
Pennsylvania generates the second most amount of energy in the United States, behind only Texas.
