PennFuture Wednesday offered strong support for Gov. Tom Wolf's proposal to enact a 5 percent severance tax on natural gas drilling activity in Pennsylvania.
"Gov. Wolf has heeded the call of Pennsylvanians, who strongly support a severance tax on natural gas drilling in the Keystone state," said John Norbeck, acting president and CEO of PennFuture. "Pennsylvania is currently the largest natural gas-producing state without a severance tax, and it's time that drillers pay their fair share. As the governor noted, a portion of the tax will deal with the environmental impacts of drilling, an inherently industrial activity. We urge him to also apportion funding from this tax toward renewable energy and energy efficiency.
"Pennsylvania has a history of extractive industries that have harmed the environment and left successive generations to pay for the damage. Gov. Wolf's actions today clearly show that this pattern will come to a close.
"The governor is making it clear that the rights of the citizens of Pennsylvania come first, and the Sheriff is back in town when it comes to natural gas drilling. We cheered his reinstatement less than two weeks ago of the moratorium on new drilling leases of public lands, and applaud his actions today on taxing shale gas drilling in Pennsylvania. Enacting a rule to control methane emissions from natural gas operations should be next on Gov. Wolf's list, a move supported by 70 percent of Pennsylvanians in a recent poll."
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