Time for a severance tax
Six years ago, state Rep. Greg Vitali, a Democrat from Havertown, made the first attempt to impose a severance tax on oil and gas companies extracting natural gas from Pennsylvania’s bedrock. Since then, 66 attempts by Pennsylvania lawmakers to impose a fee or severance tax have been made with no results.
In July, the tax seemed within the grasp of lawmakers pursuing the legislation. The state Senate passed a bipartisan spending bill that included a severance tax that would charge fracking companies about 2 cents per thousand cubic feet of gas.
When the bill got to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, the severance tax was eliminated, largely due to the efforts of lobbyists who have spent more than $59 million lobbying state legislators, and contributed $9.5 million to campaigns and political action committees since 2009, according to data released by Common Cause.
Gov. Tom Wolf is an advocate of the severance tax. “This is a fair and commonsense proposal that will address our structural budget deficit,” he said.
In this new era, where the federal government is trying to eliminate services and push them down to the federal level, Pennsylvania is going to need to get the budget under control. This means new sources of revenue.
Our elected officials are being manipulated. This type of tax would have a small impact on individual citizens, and would provide new revenue for Pennsylvania. It is time our elected officials started working for the benefit of the average person rather than big business.
Mark Pinsley
Allentown