Democrats rally for gas-drilling tax

With the days dwindling before Pennsylvania's new budget is due, a pair of local Democratic leaders joined environmentalists Saturday to pump up the effort to include a gas-drilling tax.

June 30 marks the deadline for legislators to pass judgment on Gov. Corbett's proposed budget. That plan contains no drilling taxes on companies extracting gas from Pennsylvania's Marcellus shale, but plenty of deep cuts to public education and social programs.

At Valley Forge National Historical Park, two state legislators and environmental leaders rallied against Corbett's priorities, calling them unfair and counter to public interest and sentiment.

"We're coming down to crunch time," State Rep. Greg Vitali (D., Delaware), who favors a 6 percent drilling tax, told the gathering of more than 100 supporters. "We've got about seven weeks."

Vitali, state Sen. Andrew Dinniman (D., Chester), former state Department of Environmental Protection secretary John Hanger, and national Sierra Club president Robin Mann were among those urging those gathered to prod their state legislators to support the tax - particularly Republicans in the Philadelphia suburbs.

"What's going to swing this is the suburban Republican vote," Vitali said. "The ideology of their party doesn't support this, but their constituents do. Suburban voters get this issue."

Recent polling has shown that up to 70 percent of Pennsylvanians support a tax on gas drilling companies - a tax that all other gas-producing states already have.

"People of all political views support it," said Hanger, who served under former Gov. Edward G. Rendell, "and the numbers seem to be rising."

Indeed, some Republican legislators who had opposed any taxes or fees on Pennsylvania gas drillers have softened their stances. Corbett, elected in November on a platform of no new taxes or fees, has refused to bend, even in the face of widespread public dismay over his call to cut funding to state universities by as much as 50 percent.

"I'm beginning to think that Gov. Corbett may be the last person standing in opposition to a gas tax," Hanger said, telling the gathering that "only far-right ideologues" remain so dug in on the issue.

Efforts to reach Corbett's spokesman for comment were not successful.

Dinniman said a rally last week in West Chester protesting the education cuts drew 1,200 people. He stressed that he's not out to stop the drilling and its economic benefits, but said that drillers are not sharing in the sacrifices being demanded of others by Corbett.

"They get a free ride," he said. "We're here today to proclaim that that's not right."

Mann said that in light of the budget slashing and environmental concerns raised by drilling, "it defies belief that there haven't been more public officials demanding that the gas-drilling industry pony up. This is simply paying for what you take, especially if you do damage."

Adam Garber, field director for the PennEnvironment public-interest organization, said environmental groups are organizing a bus trip to meet face to face with legislators on June 7. He urged voters not to settle for some of the minimal drilling-tax bills that have begun to surface in Harrisburg.

"We're going to get one bite at this apple," he said. "We have to make sure that these companies are paying their fair share."