Still waiting for conference committee
By Stacy Brown | PA Independent
HARRISBURG — Several hundred activist begged, pleaded, derided and chided lawmakers over a proposal that would allow the natural gas drilling companies to use the attorney general’s office to bring lawsuits against local governments.
The Marcellus shale drilling legislation “is bad legislation," said Maria Payan, a York County resident who attended a rally on the steps of the Capitol rotunda Tuesday. "This bill would prevent citizens from passing laws to protect their own health and safety."
Giving the attorney general’s office the authority would provide the drilling industry with taxpayer funded representation, said Steve Hvozdovich, president of Clean Water Action, a Harrisburg-based environmental group.
"The attorney general's primary responsibility is to protect the taxpayer, the residents of Pennsylvania," Hvozdovich said.
Several environmental groups, including Clean Water Action, PennEnvironment, Earthworks and the Pennsylvania Chapter of the Sierra Club, protested this proposal Tuesday as more than 200 people shouted: "Kill the bills."
A message left for state Attorney General Linda Kelly was not returned Tuesday.
"The attorney general is the appropriate office to handle these issues, because that office is supposed to be above reproach, and there is nothing wrong with the attorney general calling balls and strikes," said Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati, R-Jefferson, a member of the conference committee and sponsor of the Senate bill.
The proposal would allow the attorney general to sue a municipality on behalf of natural gas drillers, if that municipality attempted to create an ordinance that would deter, prevent or compromise a driller from accessing a drilling site.
The issue is one of many things to be sorted out by a joint House and Senate Conference Committee this month, after the state House and state Senate could not work out differences on separate bills to create a natural gas drilling impact fee and updated safety, environmental and zoning regulations.
The six-member committee — two legislators each from the House and Senate majorities as well as one from each body's minority — has not been formed yet. Negotiations continue behind-closed-doors between House and Senate leaders.
Senate Bill 1100 and House Bill 1950 have offered different fees for natural gas drilling and different means of collecting and distributing the revenue from the impact fees.
After meeting for weeks, the leaders and Gov. Tom Corbett's administration, so far, have settled on language giving the attorney general’s office the authority review — as well as to sue to overturn — local drilling ordinances.
It's the latest development in an ongoing struggle over zoning laws, which some municipalities have passed to explicitly forbid drilling.
Protesters argued that local ordinances reflect local values.
"Elected officials need to be responsive to their constituents who vote and not to corporate lobbyists who peddle financial influence," said Roberta Winters, a member of the board of directors for the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania, which advocates for governmental transparency.
But, some lawmakers said having the attorney general's office handle matters pertaining to any drilling litigation is based on the state's ACRE law, which allows the attorney general to review agricultural ordinances.
The Agriculture, Communities, and Rural Environmental Act of 2005 enabled the state attorney general to challenge local ordinances that illegally restrict agriculture, regardless of when they were adopted.
The ACRE law resulted in a disagreement with residents of Peach Bottom Township in York County, where local activists, including Payan, won a zoning case that prevented the location of a large pig farm. However, they were sued by the attorney general in a case that's still pending.
State Sen. Tim Solobay, D-Allegheny, said each municipality should not set its own zoning laws. "You can't have 1,800 different rules,” Solobay said.
Former Pittsburgh City Councilman Doug Shields said the power to review local laws rests with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, not the attorney general.
"This bill must be shot down," Shields said.
Scarnati said he wants to have the final legislation passed and signed before Corbett delivers his annual budget address on Feb. 7.
Asked if he shared the same view of the deadline, House Majority Leader Mike Turzai, R-Allegheny, declined to give a straight yes or no answer.
Turzai said his priority was to reach an agreement that would pass both chambers and receive the governor's signature, making no reference to a time frame.
