Tom Waring, the Wire
State Rep. Tom Murt is co-sponsoring legislation to impose a drilling tax on unconventional natural gas development in the Marcellus Shale.
House Bill 1321 is structured in such a way as to fund many of the commonwealth’s top priorities without passing the burden onto working families. It calls for a 3.2-percent drilling tax, while also keeping the impact fee created by Act 13 of 2012 to help communities directly affected by drilling.
Under the current impact fee, each well is assessed a fee that declines over time for the first 15 years of operation. All unconventional wells drilled each year, no matter how much natural gas is produced, pay the same fee. For what is thought to be a typical unconventional well, the total impact fees paid over 15 years amount to less than 2 percent of the value of the natural gas sold from the well.
Under House Bill 1321, the tax would be set up in a way that in the first year 1 percent of the tax will equal $6 million, and would grow to more than $9 million per percentage point by 2019–20 with continued modest growth in production. Revenue would be distributed to the following priorities: basic education, 40 percent; pension obligations, 35 percent; human services, 15 percent; and environmental programs, 10 percent.
Joining Murt in sponsoring the bill are Democratic Reps. Harry Readshaw and Pam DeLissio and Republican Rep. Gene DiGirolamo.
Pennsylvania, now the second-largest producer of natural gas in the nation, is the only major gas-producing state that does not impose a drilling tax.
