If you live in and around Philadelphia, there ain’t much good a local Impact Fee collected in a county “up there” will do for you. Revenue from shale gas drilling fees are intended for local use, to mitigate fracking’s most immediate impacts, yet a state-wide tax would be distributed across the state, into things like Education, roads and bridges. In terms of how the state raises revenue, Corbett has said he doesn’t care where the money comes from as long as it’s in the PA State House’s version of his $27.3 billion budget, which is due on his desk June 30th.
If you’re a Gas Company doing business in Pennsylvania, Impact Fees are a pain in your neck. You’d prefer a single low, flat tax, but as long as Impact Fees are “clear and predictable” and “competitive with other states” you’d be amenable. You’ll probably save money in the end. Plus, it would help you address the impacts on the communities where you are operating.
Save Philly Water Ice!
To doubly protect Philly’s Fresh Water and Clean Air – and not just in Southeastern PA, but South Jersey, Delaware and Maryland, too – we need both a gas tax and local impact fees. Is that so radical? How else to regulate any industry in a Commonwealth? The Supreme Court may have ruled that corporations have the same intrinsic rights as individuals, but corporations don’t have actual consciences and as such are incapable of genuine higher reasoning. They are, by nature, bottom-line oriented for their survival. The only truly viable way to enforce regulation is financial.
On May 25, 2011:
“House passes budget: Plan restores some funding to education, taking it from social welfare programs”
HARRISBURG — A House Republican budget that partially restores Governor Tom Corbett’s cuts to public and higher education by carving funding out of social welfare programs is on its way to the state Senate. The state House voted 109-92 on Tuesday after hours of tempestuous debate
to approve its version of Corbett’s $27.3 billion spending plan for the fiscal year that starts July 1.
The vote sets the stage for what is likely to be a grueling debate on the spending plan, which legislative leaders in the majority Republican House and Senate hope to have on Corbett’s desk before the June 30 deadline to approve a new budget. But much work remains on a host of issues, ranging from whether to spend an anticipated $500 million surplus to whether to approve a proposed impact fee on Marcellus Shale natural gas drillers.
SOURCE: The Morning Call, John L. Micek, Harrisburg Bureau
Read the whole story:
http://www.mcall.com/news/nationworld/pennsylvania/mc-pa-budget-vote-20110524,0,3537848.story
Keep Tap Water Safe 
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