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Trump 2.0: The Reckoning
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David Hess

David Hess, Longtime Pennsylvania Environmental Official Turned Blogger, Reflects on His Career and the Rise of Fracking

As secretary of environmental protection, Hess flipped the switch on Pennsylvania’s first commercial wind farm and helped avert a catastrophe at Quecreek mine. Now, his blog is essential reading for lawmakers, executives and activists on either side of the state’s fracking divide.

By Jake Bolster

In July 2002, then-Pennsylvania Gov. Mark Schweiker, second from right, listens to a progress report on rescue efforts at Quecreek Mine in Somerset, Pennsylvania. At right is Joseph A. Braffoni, of the Bureau of Deep Mine Safety, second from left is Larry Winckler, center is David Hess, Pennsylvania secretary of the Department of Environmental Protection and at left is Jeffery Stanchek a mine rescue instructor for the DEP. They were coordinating efforts to reach nine miners trapped for three days. Credit: Gene J. Puskar/ AFP via Getty Images.

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