State Senate passes Marcellus Shale legislation
Share with others:
HARRISBURG -- The state Senate passed a Marcellus Shale regulatory and impact fee measure this morning, sending the plan for a final vote in the state House of Representatives.
The near party-lines vote of 31-19 delayed Gov. Tom Corbett's budget address on his proposed spending plan for the 2012-13 fiscal year, which was expected to begin at 11:30 a.m.
A six-member conference committee of Republican and Democratic lawmakers from both chambers gave a party-lines approval to the measure Monday evening.
Senate President Pro Tem Joe Scarnati, R-Jefferson, who has been a key advocate for assessing a fee on natural gas drillers, bristled against Democratic criticism that the plan's speedy vote after final details were ironed out last weekend.
The issue of a levy on Marcellus Shale wells has been debated in the state Capitol for three years, with past attempts to create a severance tax repeatedly falling short. Mr. Scarnati said he has "tromped through this subject with two governors" as the number of Marcellus wells boomed, and worked for months with Senate Democrats to incorporate some of their shale-related suggestions.
"I don't stand up here to tell you I delivered a bill myself -- we did this together," Mr. Scarnati said. "We would not be here today without the strong leadership of Gov. Tom Corbett."
The Republican-negotiated measure melds the fee amounts in previous bill into a tiered system pegged against the price of natural gas, which would raise between $190,000 and $355,000 per well over 15 years. That fee is projected to raise more than $190 million retroactively for 2011, rising to $333 million by 2015.
Mr. Scarnati defended that fee as "landed in a good spot" compared to past proposals. He added that it will be adjusted annually based on the consumer price index, "so that as impacts cost more to address, the fee will cover them."
Of the fee revenue, 60 percent of the funds would be distributed to local governments with gas drilling, with the remaining 40 percent to be deposited into a state Marcellus Legacy Fund.
Each county would be able to decide whether to charge the fee, which would be collected and distributed by the state Public Utility Commission. If a county decides not to charge a fee -- and thus forfeit its share of local fee dollars -- officials in half of the municipalities in the county could override that decision by voting to charge the fee.
First Published February 7, 2012 11:48 am
