DV Journal

Senate Pro Tempore Jake Corman, a Republican who is running for governor in 2022, came to the Nottingham Fire Company in Bensalem Wednesday to speak with first responders.

“Volunteer fire companies save the state billions of dollars,” he said. “The pressure of getting more and more volunteers is difficult. It’s important for me to hear from them what they’re facing, what their challenges are.”

Corman, 57, who represents Centre, Mifflin, and Juniata counties, is the son of a state senator and has spent 22 years in Pennsylvania politics.

“This is not something I wanted to do growing up. I was a journalism major, believe it or not,” Corman told Delaware Valley Journal in a podcast interview. “And I wanted to be in sports broadcasting. And in 1994, my good friend, Rick Santorum, ran for the United States Senate.”

Sen. Jake Corman (center) meets with first responders at the Nottingham Fire Company.

After Santorum won, Corman “got the political bug” and went to work for him as state director in central Pennsylvania.

With the slogan “People First,” Corman is running to get things done to help people.

“I’d like to think I’m the excitement candidate. I’m someone who believes in putting people first. Someone who believes in protecting our freedoms.”

He took some swipes at Democrat incumbent Gov. Tom Wolf, who is term-limited and will not be running again, for his handling of the COVID pandemic.

“He was wrong when at the beginning of the pandemic he shut down our healthcare facilities,” said Corman. That caused many people to forego needed tests like mammograms or have surgeries like hip replacements, according to Corman.

“And I said, ‘Governor, you know, this is a healthcare crisis. Hospitals were full of very smart people who are experts in the healthcare industry.’”

“Our Founding Fathers decided to put the power in the people, and not the government,” he said. “The last 18 months, we’ve watched a lot of our freedoms come, not under attack, but under assault. We had a governor tell us who could go to work and support their families, and who could not. Who could go to school and get educated, and who could not. Who could get healthcare and improve their lives, and who could not. Who could congregate, who could protest in the streets, and who could not.”

Corman quoted Wolf, saying, “’The government will do everything it can to make you feel comfortable.’ When I heard that, it sent a chill up my spine. Because, really, what the governor is saying to you is, ‘We’re going to make you comfortable giving up your civil liberties.’ … Not on my last breath will I ever feel comfortable giving up my civil liberties. Because when you get comfortable giving up your freedoms and your civil liberties, the government is going to get comfortable taking them. And there may come a day when they never come back.”

Corman also accused progressives of attacking the “very people who protect us,” citing Philadelphia’s surging homicide rate with more than 500 deaths this year. That trend, he said, is reflected in other parts of the state and across the country.

“And what did our governor do when all this was going on? He participated in a march and stood in front of a sign that said ‘Blue Lives Murder.’ That’s the type of leadership he chose to provide during this very difficult time. … The people of Pennsylvania don’t support that agenda. They don’t support defunding the police. They don’t support attacking the heroes of our community. I will stand with our men and women in uniform.”

Corman counts jobs and quality education as key parts of his platform.

“Economic security is the key component of family-sustaining jobs, family-sustaining communities,” he said. “You’ve got to have economic security if you’re going to have a successful community. The way you get those good, blue-collar jobs is developing good economic policy which this governor doesn’t want to do.”

“And I’ve led the charge against his policies and created better policies that have created jobs in the energy sector, which has created blue-collar jobs.”

Corman pointed to a new $6 billion natural gas to gasoline plant that will be built in Lucerne County that he supported but Wolf opposed. That plant will create about 4,000 temporary construction jobs and several hundred permanent jobs.

“I want to get things done,” he said. “We can all stand for certain things. We can all be for certain things. But if you don’t accomplish them then, really, what good are you?”

Corman also blasted the progressive Democrats’ push to defund the police.

“The people who live in this community want policing more than anybody,” he said. “If you don’t stand up and say, ‘we need safe streets. We need to support our men and women in uniform,’ then you’re sending out a message that’s it’s not important. The crime that went on in some of our cities and no one prosecuted any of these people …You’re sending a message that what they’re doing is OK.”

Corman added, “We can support our men and women in uniform and still deal with the social concerns that drive some of those values,” he said. “I believe that we can have good energy jobs and still protect our environment. It’s a false choice to say it has to be one or the other. You can do both. You just have to be clever, you have to be creative.”

Education was a big issue driving many parents to the polls in the 2021 election cycle, as parents saw what their children were learning online during the pandemic.

“First of all, we have to be fighting back as a nation, not just a state, as a nation against Washington, D.C. and new Biden administration, sending the FBI out after parents who go to school board meetings and to have voices heard. That’s the most outrageous thing I think I’ve ever heard in my entire career, my entire life that our own country would be trying to silence voices.”

“We have to be encouraging parents to be involved in their children’s education,” he added.

Corman is competing in a large field of GOP candidates, including former U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta, Montgomery Commissioner Joe Gale, GOP strategist Charlie Gerow, Chester County Chamber of Business & Industry  CEO Guy Ciarrocchi, Former U.S. Attorney Bill McSwain, former Delaware County Councilmember Dave White, and surgeon Nche Zama.

Attorney General Josh Shapiro is the only announced Democrat in the governor’s race.

Reporter Isaac Avilucea contributed to this article.

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The Wolf administration wants the Keystone State to have a carbon-free electric grid by 2050. But not all Pennsylvanians are amped by the idea.

“I think it’s very good for Pennsylvania that Wolf has only one more year left in his term of office and he can’t run for governor again,” says chairman of the Pennsylvania Environmental Resources and Energy Committee Daryl Metcalfe (R-Butler County). “These types of policies are just going to drive up the cost of energy that we all need in our daily lives.”

Gov. Tom Wolf (D) announced the Pennsylvania Climate Action Plan 2021 on Wednesday, calling for statewide action on climate change by all sectors of the state.

“As thousands of Pennsylvanians try to recover from historic flooding and tornadoes related to the remnants of Ida this month, the message is clear: we must move now out of a reactive mode on climate change,” Wolf said.

The Wolf administration’s Department of Environmental Protection echoed the governor.

“As a result of increasing greenhouse gas emissions from human activity, Pennsylvania’s average temperature has risen nearly 2 degrees Fahrenheit since 1900, bringing more heatwaves and increased intensity of extreme weather events, including heavy rainfall and flooding,” said DEP in a statement ahead of the climate plan announcement. “Pennsylvania is on course to climb another 5.9 degrees by the middle decades of this century.”

There is no data showing any increased intensity in extreme weather. And there has been no increase in flooding.

“These conclusions of the IPCC, indicate that it is simply incorrect [emphasis in original] to claim that on climate time scales the frequency or intensity of extreme weather and climate events has increased for: Flooding, drought (meteorological or hydrological), tropical cyclones, winter storms, thunderstorms, tornadoes, hail, lightning or extreme winds,” writes Professor Roger Pielke, Jr. of the University of Colorado.

There are 18 recommendations in Wolf’s Climate Action Plan. They include updating and enforcing building codes, improving energy efficiency in the residential and commercial sectors, increasing the use of on-site solar power in those sectors, adding to the number of electric vehicles, and using programs and incentives to increase energy efficiency in agriculture.

“We’ll get our biggest greenhouse gas emission reductions from creating a carbon-free electricity grid that uses renewable and nuclear energy,” said DEP Secretary Patrick McDonnell at a virtual press conference.

“In a world of wishful thinking, policy changes should be based on sound science so that new regulations are reasonable, cost effective, and achievable with existing technology,” says David N. Taylor, president and CEO of Pennsylvania Manufacturers’ Association.

“Gov. Wolf’s  ‘Action Plan’ fails all of these bright-line tests in moving the goal posts on Pennsylvania’s productive sector,” says David Taylor. “Our manufacturers require reliable and affordable energy to add value and satisfy customers, and private sector innovation has led to dramatic decreases in energy-related emissions over the past two decades.”

As these innovations advance, Taylor says we will continue to drive economic growth while improving our environment, all without unnecessary and costly intervention from  Wolf Administration.

“Among those who can’t afford such absurd illusions are more than 8,000 workers whose livelihoods depend on coal-fired plants in Indiana and Armstrong counties and hundreds of businesses and millions of consumers whose profitability and wealth would be eroded by higher electricity prices resulting from Wolf’s so-called green grid,” says Gordon Tomb, senior fellow for the Commonwealth Foundation.

Leo Knepper at Citizens Alliance of Pennsylvania (CAP) agrees.

“Wolf is living in some sort of an alternate reality if he thinks that something like a zero-carbon energy grid is desirable or realistic for Pennsylvania,” says Leo Knepper, political director for Citizens Alliance of Pennsylvania (CAP). “A paper released in 2016 estimated that the clean energy mandates in place at that time would cost the commonwealth over $700 million in higher electricity costs and 11,000 jobs by 2025.”

The impact of the types of mandates the governor is now suggesting would be far worse, says Knepper.

“Between 2000 and 2018, carbon emissions from energy production dropped by 20 percent, and that’s not due to new mandates,” says Knepper. “Carbon output dropped because natural gas became more price competitive and it is a cleaner-burning fuel.”

As lower-emission energy generation becomes more competitive on a price per kilowatt-hour, Knepper says its consumption will increase and carbon output will naturally decrease further.

“Government trying to front-run the technology and force adoption will result in much higher costs, job losses, and a lower standard of living overall,” says Knepper.

Earlier this year, U.S. Steel announced its plans to cancel a $1.5 billion investment in Mon Valley Works, a decision that affected 3,000 workers. Critics blamed it on the environmental policies from Wolf and President Joe Biden.

“The loss of this $1.5 billion project is a devastating blow to the economy of southwestern Pennsylvania and a slap in the face to the hard-working blue-collar families who were counting on these jobs,” said Pennsylvania state Republican legislators in a May statement. “It is a clear reminder that we need a commonsense, cooperative strategy on energy and the economy.”

“What they announced is the kind of socialist pie-in-the-sky that fits well with Biden’s agenda and AOC’s agenda and The Squad’s agenda from D.C.,” says Metcalfe. “I think Wolf is certainly trying to attract attention from Biden so that when he’s done harming Pennsylvania through his gubernatorial work that he may be able to attract Biden to try to bring him into his administration.”