To: Governor Tom Wolf
Governor Wolf, scrub your administration clean of oil and gas and start with Bane.
Karen Feridun
Yesenia Bane, your special assistant, is married to an oil and gas industry lobbyist. The conflict of interest that this creates is unacceptable. You have surrounded yourself with advisors and cabinet members with ties to the industry since the start of your campaign. You will never get an honest perspective on the harms the fossil fuel industry is doing to your constituents and their natural resources as long as you continue to do so. You have a responsibility to scrub your administration clean of anyone with ties to the industry and you must start with Bane.
Why is this important?
StateImpact PA broke the news that Yesenia Bane, a special assistant to Governor Tom Wolf, is married to an oil and gas industry lobbyist. Her connection to the industry may be news, but we've known since the beginning of Wolf's campaign that he was surrounding himself with advisors and cabinet members with ties to the industry. Several, like Katie McGinty, John Hanger, and even Ed Rendell, his former boss and mentor, are surely dizzy from all the spins they've taken in the revolving door between PA state government and the oil and gas industry. They have made it easy for him to ignore the calls for help from the countless Pennsylvanians who have been profoundly harmed by fracking and related infrastructure, to ignore the scientists who have met with him, to ignore the 900 peer-reviewed studies that collectively make the case for a ban on fracking, and to consistently put the interests of the industry above those of the people he was elected to serve. He must fire Bane, scrub the oil and gas out of his entire administration, and ban fracking.