OBSERVER-REPORTER: Legislators in Maryland want to let the state’s environmental watchdogs conduct a two-year study to determine whether hydraulic fracturing hurts the environment and endangers public health. Moreover, they want natural gas companies to pay for the study, taxing them $10 per leased acre.
Our neighbors to the north, New York, also have a moratorium in effect, pending a review by their Department of Environmental Conservation. And all the other states in the Marcellus Shale have an extraction tax in place.
Gov. Tom Corbett is stubbornly opposed to an extraction tax, though he’s warmed slightly to the notion of impact fees that would help local communities cope with the downsides of the Marcellus Shale gold rush. But, with a nagging budget gap and the prospect of a 52 percent slice to state higher education funding, to name just one area where the ax is swinging, to keep an extraction tax off the table while students have to dig deeper in their pockets seems deeply unfair… (more)
