Editorial “Money on the table” asserts:
“Monday, the Public Utility Commission announced that the initial impact fees on Marcellus shale gas drillers raised $206 million. That’s 14 percent more than the $180 million industry analysts had predicted.
“As significant as that is, it’s also $187 million less than what the state would have received had the Corbett administration and the Republican-dominated Legislature imposed a severance tax similar to West Virginia’s rather than impact fees.
“According to the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center, a nonpartisan statewide policy research group, a severance tax would have raised $387 million between July 2009 and December 2011. The calculations are based on production data reported by the state Department of Environmental Protection and cover the 4,453 wells that were drilled from 2006 through 2011. The 2009 date was chosen by the center because that is when legislators first debated whether to impose a severance tax…”
WATCHDOG: A wag of the tail so far, but what is missing is that Common Cause reports that Corbett in 2011 took at least $1.6 million from Marcellus Shale interests even as he advocated not taxing the same industry. (The Sandusky case, sadly, only created a diversion from Corbett’s Marcellus misbehavior.)
Marcellus shale interests recouped their $1.6 million in a contribution to Gov. Corbett in just two days!
