Roads to ruin without severance tax

By Camille "Bud" George

Pennsylvania has a responsibility to employ best management practices for its resources and taxpayers now and for future generations. Someday, the gas will be gone but our responsibilities will not. A fair share tax on Marcellus gas drillers will ensure the Commonwealth does not come to a dead end.

But it's looking shaky.

Follow the money, follow the rutted roads, follow the fines. However, don't believe for a second the gas industry blather about "best management practices" and it complying "with all state regulations to protect the environment and the people of Pennsylvania."

A gas-industry truck was impounded in January after it was found to be 41.6 tons over the weight limit on a Bradford County road. The truck also had "numerous other permit violations."

"We've had so many problems lately with blatant 'weight limit] violations," said a state policeman. "...It's only going to get worse with all these gas companies coming in."

Four drivers of trucks serving the gas industry were fined and jailed in February after they allegedly hauled oversize loads illegally on Bradford County roads. Before being found almost 27 tons over weight, one of the trucks struck utility lines, a traffic signal and finally an overpass that sheared off part of his load.

A week later, a truck bound for a natural gas-drilling site was found to be 49.9 tons over the weight limit.

The state Public Utility Commission is increasing enforcement in northeastern Pennsylvania after receiving complaints. A township supervisor in Clearfield County told me that drilling trucks had pulverized roads to the point that they remind his son "of the bombed out roads in Iraq."

Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences noted that a well in Lycoming County reportedly required 77 tractor-trailer loads to bring drilling equipment to the site.

How do communities pay for the wear and tear on their roads? Without a severance tax, they have little hope.

The college notes that natural gas exploration and drilling by itself will provide relatively little tax revenues to local jurisdictions in Pennsylvania because natural gas is not subject to local taxation.

Neither lease nor royalty income is subject to local income taxes, nor do Pennsylvania local jurisdictions benefit directly from higher local retail sales because they lack authority to levy a local sales tax.

Local officials are allowed to require owners of overweight vehicles to post bonds of up to $12,500 a mile. However, the bond has remained unchanged even though the cost of replacing damaged roadway now is estimated at more than $100,000 a mile.

The $12,500 may fill a few potholes, Elam Herr of the Pennsylvania State Association of Township Supervisors told a reporter. "But it isn't going to do much more than that."

It's a rocky road on the environmental front, too.

The state Department of Environmental Protection reported in February that it fined a borough in Lycoming County $75,000 for operation and discharge violations at its sewage treatment plant, including treatment of gas well wastewater.

The DEP said that the borough exceeded maximum allowable loads by transferring excessive volumes of high chloride wastewater from drilling operations into a plant on 10 occasions last year.

The borough also was cited for not receiving or maintaining records of additives used by gas well operators that disposed of wastewater at the plant.

Extraction of any natural resource comes at a cost. Drillers are removing a nonrenewable resource from Pennsylvania, using Commonwealth resources and taxpayer-paid infrastructure.

A severance tax such as my House Bill 1489 would make those profiting nicely from natural gas pay their fair share of the extraction costs. It also would reduce the pressures to drill, baby, drill our state forests to death.

Pennsylvania has a responsibility to employ best management practices for its resources and taxpayers now and for future generations.

Someday, the gas will be gone but our responsibilities will not. A fair share tax on Marcellus gas drillers will ensure the Commonwealth does not come to a dead end.

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