Environmental Group Still Fight For Marcellus Drill Tax

A Pennsylvania environmental advocacy group continues to push for a Marcellus Shale severance tax, despite Governor Ed Rendell’s shifting stance on the issue.
Governor Rendell spent much of 2009 calling for a tax on natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale formation, but recently said the levy isn’t appropriate for this year, and is off the table, as far as budget talks are concerned.
House Democratic leaders disagree with that stance, as does PennFuture president and CEO Jan Jarrett. She says the argument a tax would cripple the industry before it gets up and running is false.

"The industry pays a severance tax almost everywhere else it’s doing business. It’s already figured into the cost of their doing business. It’s already figured into the cost of consumers who use the tax. These are giant well-capitalized corporations that are coming here to drill for natural gas. They’re not mom and pop startups."

Rendell says he’s still in favor of a severance tax at some point—just not this year.
He initially wanted to impose a 5-percent levy on wellheads, as well as a 4.7 cent tax on every thousand cubic feet of extracted gas. In his initial budget proposal, Rendell estimated a severance tax could generate 107 million dollars this year. But in withdrawing the tax proposal, he reduced those revenue projections.