Want to protect Pennsylvania’s environment and strengthen its economy? Build more pipelines. Despite the emotion-filled protests charging that pipelines will doom our future — including a group of environmentalists who marched on the Governor’s Mansion in February — the facts tell a different story. Pipelines are safer than any other mode of transporting fuel. When pipelines carry natural gas, they reduce carbon emissions and global warming. And the pipeline industry supports thousands of family-sustaining jobs. There are few places where the positive economic impact of the natural gas pipeline boon is more obvious than in Pennsylvania. At least 80,000 men and women are employed in extracting and distributing shale natural gas, according to the Governor’s Office. Industry groups, such as the Marcellus Shale Coalition, put that figure much higher, with at least a quarter-million jobs supported by the sector. Many of these jobs were created as the Great Recession […]