Trump to Headline Fracked Gas Conference Amid Local Opposition to Fossil Fuel Buildout

Pittsburgh, PA -- On Wednesday, Donald Trump is scheduled to give the keynote address at the Shale Insight Conference in Pittsburgh. Trump is expected to tout his administration’s rollbacks of key environmental protections, with the goal of propping up the fossil fuel industry at the expense of Appalachian communities that will be subjected to increased air and water pollution.  

• Trump has been a vocal proponent of plans to build the nation’s second largest petrochemical hub in the Ohio River Valley. The largest petrochemical hub in the U.S. is located in southern Louisiana along the Mississippi River and is linked to high rates of illness among nearby communities.
  
• The fracked gas industry plans to build a large network of proposed fracked gas pipelines along the Ohio River and five proposed petrochemical plants, known as “ethane crackers,” that would use fracked gas to make plastic..
  
• Ethane crackers are known to release toxic air pollution, including cancer-causing benzene and other pollutants. Building out petrochemical plants would also drive an increase in fracking for gas to feed the plants, and the increased air and water pollution that comes with it.

• At the same time, Trump continues to back controversial fracked gas pipelines, including the Mountain Valley Pipeline and the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which would further increase the fracking in the region.

Meanwhile, Trump’s EPA is working to eliminate the very safeguards that would protect communities put at risk by fracking. These attacks include:

• EPA has proposed to eliminate a safeguard limiting methane emissions and other dangerous pollutants from new oil and gas operations. Last week, at the only public hearing on EPA’s proposed rollback, more than 100 people from across the country testified in favor of keeping these common sense safeguards in place.
  
• Trump is also seeking to undermine bedrock protections set forth in the Clean Water Act with a proposal to significantly limit authority granted by the Clean Water Act for states to protect their water quality. This rule change would severely limit the time and tools available to states to properly evaluate the effect federally permitted projects, like pipelines or fossil fuel facilities, would have on waterways.

Joined by more than 50 Indigenous leaders from across the country, local residents plan to march and rally outside Trump’s speech Wednesday to raise awareness of these threats and to make it clear that Ohio Valley communities do not want to see their air and clean water polluted by fracked gas and petrochemicals. For more information about the fracking expansion and petrochemical hub proposed for the Ohio Valley or to speak with a local spokesperson, contact Gabby Brown at gabby.brown@sierraclub.org.