Marcellus Shale

By Marcy Dubroff

We are now facing a similar situation in the Marcellus Shale region of the state. I believe that natural gas drilling and fracking in this region has moved way too quickly. Pennsylvania needs to be more responsible about protecting the environment and the communities that will be affected by the extraction of natural gas. This begins, first and foremost, with having the gas industry pay a fair extraction tax, adequate bonding fees, and an exporting tax. Bringing all these fees up to industry standards is not only the right thing to do, it is also imperative if we are to safeguard the health and welfare of the communities that are located in the Marcellus Shale region. Bringing these fees up to industry standards (such as the ones in Texas and Oklahoma) could help ease some of the economic woes the Commonwealth is currently facing. A portion of these fees could also be put in escrow as a safeguard against potential environmental disasters.

We have all seen the boom and bust results in the western part of the state, where big coal businesses lined their pockets in the 1970s, only to abandon the communities in which they had made their money when the economy went south in the 1980s.

We need to adopt a more thoughtful, careful approach to how we utilize the Marcellus Shale resources, especially if our ultimate goal is to become energy independent without destroying the land, the air and the water on which we depend.