Yes, butt out, Mr. Bloomberg

With access to $85 million of Michael Bloomberg’s fortune and a plan devised in a Manhattan skyscraper, the Philadelphia-based Clean Air Council is on a “ban everything” mission (Joseph Otis Minott, “Big gas will throttle our economy no more,” Oct. 6).

That does that mean for hardworking Pennsylvanians? “Economic ruin” as the PostGazette’s editorial board bluntly put it (“Butt out, Mr. Bloomberg,” Sept. 26).

Our member companies and thousands of union building trades men and women are working toward solutions that grow our economy, protect our environment, and ensure opportunity is there for our kids to have meaningful careers here close to home. The natural gas produced in Pennsylvania is the catalyst of this growth — It’s flexible, clean and abundant, and the key to achieving a lower-carbon energy future both here and worldwide.

With natural gas use in power generation, Pennsylvania’s air quality is the cleanest in generations. Actual air monitoring data confirms we’re producing natural gas more cleanly and sustainably than anywhere in the world.

It’s not an either environmental progress or economic growth equation; we can, and do, have both. At the Shell manufacturing facility in Beaver County, more than 6,000 union building trades men and women constructed this worldclass plant that’ll support direct careers for 600 individuals. With this project, union apprenticeship enrollment is at record highs, as future steamfitters, boilermakers, ironworkers, operating engineers, and electrical workers train for the steady job opportunities natural gas delivers.

If New York billionaires and Philadelphia activists succeed in banning natural gas development, halting infrastructure construction and stopping manufacturing growth, unemployment will skyrocket, we’ll be dependent on foreign adversaries for our energy needs, and we’ll reverse the generational environmental progress underway.

We don’t subscribe to that view — and neither should you.

DAVID CALLAHAN, Marcellus Shale Coalition

JEFF NOBERS, Pittsburgh Works