SCRANTON TIMES-TRIBUNE: Christmas still is seven weeks distant, but if the “impact fee” passed this week by the House Finance Committee is the best that lawmakers can do, natural gas drillers might as well celebrate right now.
The fee, $40,000 per well in the first year, $30,000 in the second, $20,000 in the third and $10,000 in years four through 10, sounds substantial. But it is irrelevant to the amount of gas produced. As noted by Rep. Phyllis Mundy of Luzerne County, the fee will amount to 1 percent of a typical well’s 50-year production – a rate far lower than gas severance taxes in place in every other gas-producing state.
Even the modest revenue the fee will produce carries a heavy price. The bill establishing the fee also would void all local zoning relative to well placements, so the guy next door will get money on his lease while you will get the noise… (more)
