“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.”
