Ten years after the first gas driller bored into the Marcellus Shale formation, the commonwealth remains the only major gas-producing state without a severance tax. Legislation to enact a severance tax has been introduced into the General Assembly every year since 2009. And every year, the General Assembly has failed to get a severance tax bill to the governor’s desk. The Republican budget for 2015-16 does not include a severance tax.
Ten years after the first gas driller bored into the Marcellus Shale formation, the commonwealth remains the only major gas-producing state without a severance tax. Legislation to enact a severance tax has been introduced into the General Assembly every year since 2009. And every year, the General Assembly has failed to get a severance tax bill to the governor’s desk. The Republican budget for 2015-16 does not include a severance tax.
Polls over these years have shown that a severance tax enjoys broad, bipartisan support from voters. Bipartisan support also exists in the General Assembly, where both Republican and Democratic lawmakers have introduced versions of a severance tax.
So why hasn’t a severance tax passed? Well, there are a million reasons – no, wait, — there are 55 million reasons why Pennsylvania continues to give the drillers a huge tax break. According to the latest Marcellus Money report, a project of Common Cause of Pennsylvania and the Conservation Voters of Pennsylvania, since 2007 gas drillers have spent $46.8 million lobbying Pennsylvania officials and $8.2 million in campaign contributions to candidates for office and PACs.
Governor Wolf made passage of a severance tax the centerpiece of his budget. The Wolf budget is structured so that revenue from a drilling tax would go to restore education funding drastically cut during the Corbett administration, fund economic development and clean energy, and hire more Department of Environmental Protection inspectors to monitor gas drilling in Pennsylvania.
In failing to include a severance tax in their budget, the Republican leadership chose oil and gas industry lobbyists and PACs over the needs of our children and communities. This budget richly deserves the veto the governor is sure to deliver.