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Gov. Shapiro Walks a Fine Line on Cimate. His Opponent Just Wants to Drill.
Just weeks before the May 19 primary election Pennsylvania Republican gubernatorial candidate Stacy Garrity said her support for the state’s oil and gas industry was “not a boilerplate political statement, however failed to mention that this work has also helped sustain her own bottom line. Garrity leases mineral rights beneath property she owns to the fracking industry.
“What began as a private financial decision has, over time, become a continuous and ongoing source of income that she has maintained throughout her tenure as a public official,” said Davina Hurt, Ethics Center's director of government ethics .
Whether Garrity’s personal income from fracking directly impacted her positioning on energy policy is “difficult to fully disentangle,” Hurt said. But, she added, it could erode public trust.
Hurt recommends that politicians put their personal assets into blind trusts while governing to separate their policymaking decisions from their own bottom line.
Davina Hurt, director, government ethics, quoted by . The article was distributed to other markets including , and the .