Tag: impact fee

Pennsylvania Utility Commission: 2023 Natural Gas Impact Fees Top $278 Million

Bradley Vasoli

Pennsylvania’s Public Utility Commission announced this week that the commonwealth and its localities will collect nearly $279 million from natural gas extraction impact fees this year. 

The revenues, applying to drilling activity throughout 2022, bring the total fees collected for gas extraction from the Marcellus Shale sedimentary rock formation to $2.5 billion since 2012, the year lawmakers imposed the tax on fossil-fuel producers. This year’s allocations will be the largest yearly amount the government amassed through the levy, representing a 19 percent increase over the prior year’s take. 

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Pennsylvania Localities Benefitting Substantially from Gas Extraction Fee

Bradley Vasoli

While Democrats insist Pennsylvania misses out on revenue from natural gas extraction, a Pittsburgh nonprofit’s analysis published on Thursday observes drilling impact fees yielded $2.25 billion through 2021.

Since the boom in hydraulic fracturing (or fracking), the horizontal drilling technique gas companies use to access the vast reserves of fossil fuel from the Marcellus Shale sedimentary rock formation, many politicians have eyed an extraction tax. Instead of such a tax, former Governor Tom Corbett (R) and a Republican-led legislature levied an impact fee in 2012, with revenues going to localities largely to mitigate fracking-related environmental disruption. In the new policy brief from the Allegheny Institute (AI), the think tank’s executive director Frank Gamrat detailed those revenue gains. 

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‘2023 Property Taxpayer Protection Act’ to be Taken up by General Assembly this Week

Laura Baigert

A bill that would protect property taxpayers from bearing the brunt of new residential development across the state is set to be taken up in the General Assembly this week.

The “2023 Property Taxpayer Protection Act” will remedy a disparity between the ways in which cities and counties are able to fund the expansion of services brought on by the accelerated growth Tennessee is experiencing which was created by the 2006 County Powers Relief Act.

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Rutherford County Mayor Joe Carr Presents ‘2023 Property Taxpayers Protection Act’ to Sumner County Constitutional Group

Laura Baigert

HENDERSONVILLE, Tennessee – Rutherford County Mayor Joe Carr presented the 2023 Property Taxpayers Protection Act to the Sumner County Constitutional Republicans, during the group’s regularly scheduled meeting Saturday at the Shackle Island Fire Rescue Hall in Hendersonville.

The Sumner County Constitutional Republicans is a five-year old organization that formed and exists to recruit and train God-fearing, action-based conservatives to run for local office, its Chairman Kurt Riley told The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy.

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Rutherford County Seeks Parity from Legislature in Options for Cities and Counties to Deal with Growth

Laura Baigert

Rutherford County is seeking parity from the state legislature in terms of options available for cities and counties in dealing with the expansion of services demanded by the unprecedented growth in the state.

At the regular meeting of the Rutherford County Board of Commissioners held Thursday evening, a resolution was passed by a vote of 18 to 3 requesting the county’s legislative delegation to support any bills presented in the 2023 legislative session to amend the 2006 County Powers Relief Act.

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Proposal Would Bar Pennsylvania Counties That Ban Gas Drilling from Getting Gas Revenues

Bradley Vasoli

Pennsylvania state Sen. Gen Yaw (R-Williamsport) this week announced he is authoring a bill to bar any county that bans natural-gas development on county-owned lands from getting certain natural-gas revenues. 

Specifically, Yaw’s proposal would prevent those jurisdictions from receiving allocations from the commonwealth’s gas-drilling impact fee, including any grants from the Marcellus Legacy Fund that finances regional environmental improvement projects. Revenues collected from the levy on companies extracting gas from the sedimentary rock known as Marcellus Shale totaled $234.4 million last year. The fee has brought nearly $2.3 billion into the state Treasury over the last decade.

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