On Friday, the PA Chamber convened an event in Scranton highlighting Pennsylvania’s potential to leverage our natural resources to attract private sector investment and jobs, particularly when it comes to data centers and other AI technologies.
The event brought together leaders from business, labor, economic development agencies, and state and federal elected officials to discuss the coordination necessary to make northeast Pennsylvania a hub for innovation.
Congressman Rob Bresnahan (PA-08) opened the event by highlighting the work happening in Washington, D.C. to promote American energy dominance. Bresnahan highlighted the need for permitting and regulatory reform to allow projects to advance faster.
Anthony Pugliese, a PA-native and former chief of staff at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission who now serves as the Chief Commercialization Officer at the U.S. Department of Energy, said that the administration is working to change the federal government’s approach to permitting. Rather than weaponizing the permitting process to stifle development, Pugliese said the federal government wants to be viewed as a partner. He said that increasing baseload generation and improving the grid’s reliability and resiliency are top priorities.
PA Chamber President and CEO Luke Bernstein moderated a discussion with Ryan Aument, U.S. Senator Dave McCormick’s State Director, and Sam Robinson, Governor Josh Shapiro’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Energy and Environmental Policy, underscoring the importance of bipartisan collaboration between elected leaders to attract major investments to the state. Aument stated that supporting Pennsylvania energy and innovation are Senator McCormick’s top priorities and noted that the Senator’s office has a standing meeting with PA DCED officials to share information and coordinate about attracting investments to Pennsylvania.
Robinson stated that the Governor’s office is working on developing a framework that will allow generation projects to add capacity to the grid. He noted that permitting reform and speeding up bureaucratic approvals must be part of that framework.
The event ended with a panel of local business, labor, and economic development leaders discussing northeast PA’s unique opportunity to attract innovation investments due to the region’s robust energy resources. The panel agreed that increasing baseload generation and transmission, plus training a skilled workforce and leverage strategic private and public investments are the recipe to build data centers and attract downstream economic benefits.