Impact fee might violate pledge
By Caleb Taylor | PA Independent
HARRISBURG — The final report from Gov. Tom Corbett’s Marcellus Shale Commission is due on Friday, but questions remain about whether its recommendations violate one of the governor's previous campaign pledges.
Corbett must balance his commission’s recommendation of a natural gas drilling impact fee with his campaign pledge not to raise taxes. Throughout the spring legislative session, Corbett said he would wait for the commission’s recommendations before deciding whether to sign severance tax or impact fee legislation. He promised to veto an impact fee if it was included in the budget, which short-circuited efforts by Senate Republicans to pass a fee.
On Thursday, Senate President Joseph Scarnati, R-Jefferson, said the governor’s commission had slowed the legislative process unnecessarily.
“I’m not a commission advocate,” Scarnati said. “I think that we have all been elected here to do a job. Although it’s nice now to have a report, we still need to have legislative interaction."
Scarnati said the governor needed to lay out the parameters for an impact fee proposal he would be willing to sign.
But Americans for Tax Reform, a fiscally conservative Washington, D.C.-based political organization, is trying to set some parameters of its own. The organization is responsible for the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, which Corbett signed during his gubernatorial campaign. It subsequently became a major issue during the budget session this year.
Signers promise to oppose and vote against all tax increases. The pledge does not expire until an official leaves office.
In an editorial on Tuesday in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Patrick Gleason, director of state affairs for Americans for Tax Reform, said any tax on natural gas drilling would have to be accompanied by new tax reductions. Gleason specifically pointed to the state’s 9.99 percent corporate income tax, the highest in the nation.
Americans for Tax Reform did not return calls for comment Thursday.
Democrats continue to argue that Corbett’s adherence to the “no-tax” pledge gives undue power to the Washington-based group, which is run by conservative activist Grover Norquist.
"Gov. Corbett is ceding power to Grover Norquist — allowing him to decide whether or not Pennsylvania has a severance tax despite polling that shows nearly 70 percent of Pennsylvanians support holding Corbett's gas driller donors accountable,” said Mark Nicastre, a spokesman with the Pennsylvania Democratic Party.
But Republican strategist Charlie Gerow said Corbett could support an impact fee while also not violating the pledge.
“I don’t think impact fees would necessarily fall under the pledge,” said Gerow, CEO of Harrisburg-based Quantum Communications, which provides strategic communications and marketing for lawmakers, nonprofits, businesses and public interest groups. “If he wants to support an impact fee, there is certainly a legitimate way for it to be done. That model is something that he is probably more likely to support.”
Scarnati said Corbett clearly opposes a severance tax, but “I’ve never heard him say no” to an impact fee. A severance tax is based on a flat rate that is applied to the value of the resources removed.
According to a Quinnipiac University poll in early June, 69 percent of voters surveyed support a tax on natural gas drilling companies, but 55 percent do not favor a tax increase to help balance the budget. The poll surveyed 1,300 registered voters in Pennsylvania and had a margin of error of 2.7 percent.
An impact fee bill previously proposed by Scarnati would have imposed a $10,000 per-well fee and distributed the revenue to communities that hosted drilling and the state’s conservation districts, which are operated at the county level. The fee proposal was killed before a final Senate vote by Corbett’s promise to veto it.
Numerous impact fee/severance tax bills also were introduced in the House by Republicans and Democrats during the summer session. However, House Republican leadership declined to push any legislation in order to wait for the commission’s recommendations.
Corbett’s office did not return a call for comment.
