By Stacy Brown | PA Independent
HARRISBURG — And then there was one.
After three years of negotiating conflicting natural gas drilling policies in the Senate with its 50 members and the House with its 203 members, a compromise of these proposals now rests in the hands of just one legislative committee.
A rare joint House and Senate Conference Committee is tasked with creating legislation with a natural gas drilling impact fee and updated safety, environmental and zoning regulations.
Senate President Joe Scarnati, R-Jefferson, said, he thought with a good faith effort, "we can find some resolution and have it done when we're back in January."
The leaders of the House and Senate will select the six members of the committee, which will consist of two legislators each from the House and Senate majorities as well as one from each body's minority.
The members are expected to be announced in January, and committee meetings are likely to begin that month.
The Conference Committee “will try to get it done, but in the end, you need 26 votes in the Senate and (102) in the House and the governor's signature,'' said House Majority Leader Mike Turzai, R-Allegheny, referring to the final natural gas drilling proposal.
The primary sticking point between the Senate and House is over who would collect natural gas drilling impact fees and how that money would be divided.
“Without the stronger provisions in place and without a strong impact fee holding the industry accountable, I fear taxpayers, as they are today in the cleanup of the coal mining industry, will be left footing the bill for mitigation efforts,” said state Sen. John Yudichak, D-Monroe. “That is simply unacceptable.”
The Senate asked for a per-well fee of $360,000 over 20 years, while the House proposed a per-well fee of $160,000 over 10 years.
The House wanted to give counties where drilling occurs the authority to collect the fee and keep 75 percent of the revenue at the local level, based on Gov. Tom Corbett's recent Marcellus Shale Commission report.
The Senate, however, would have the state collect the fee and distribute only 55 percent to local municipalities. The remaining revenue would be divided among various state-level agencies and departments related to gas drilling.
"You can't look at this as just a windfall of revenue for the state. The county-option part is the most important,” Turzai said, referring to giving each gas-producing county the option to impose and collect the impact fee.
The three Conference Committee members from the House and the three from the Senate will come up with two proposals that will be massaged into one plan when the committee as a whole meets.
Once there is a compromise, both legislative branches vote on the compromise. If the compromise passes both chambers, the measure goes to the governor for his consideration.
As part of the rules of the Legislature, the committee allows members from both chambers to resolve disagreements on legislation. There are no stipulations as to when the committee must convene and how long it can take.
"I don't recall having a Conference Committee," said Turzai, who has served in the House since 2001.
Senate President Joe Scarnati, R-Jefferson, said, he thought with a good faith effort, "we can find some resolution and have it done when we're back in January."
In 2008, a conference committee dealt with a bill to ban smoking in Pennsylvania restaurants. A 2009 conference committee met on the state budget.
