Pennsylvania governor declares natural gas tax dead

http://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFN2112837120101021?sp=true

Pennsylvania governor declares natural gas tax dead

PHILADELPHIA Oct 21 (Reuters) – Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell on Thursday declared his plan to tax natural gas production “clearly dead this year” due to Republican opposition and accused Republican legislators of reneging on a pledge to enact a tax.

Pennsylvania, home to the Marcellus Shale that is expected to quadruple production in the next 20 years, remains the only gas-producing state yet to impose a tax on shale gas, a largely untapped and relatively clean source of onshore energy.

“Their clear unwillingness to change their previous proposal or to resolve differences with the House Democrats and with my administration makes it obvious that they have killed the severance tax in this legislative session,” Rendell said in a statement.

Senate Republican spokesman Erik Arneson accused Rendell of making a “unilateral decision to end negotiations”.

“We are willing to continue negotiations on Marcellus Shale issues,” Arneson said. “We hope the governor will reconsider his position.”

Talks had already extended past the end of the legislative session, meaning that if any deal had been reached then both houses would need to be called back into special session.

Rendell, a Democrat who will step down in January at the end of his second term, has been calling for the tax for two years to boost state revenue and help pay for the environmental costs of gas drilling.

The Republican-controlled state senate and the shale gas industry had opposed the tax, forcing Rendell to compromise from an original plan that would have raised $307 million in the first year alone. Now that compromise is dead as well.

Lawmakers had agreed during this year’s budget talks to settle details of the so-called severance tax by Oct. 1. The date passed without a deal despite protracted talks, and the legislative session has ended ahead of the Nov. 2 election.

“It is a broken promise, as well as a misguided policy decision that will harm our environment, will leave our local governments without the financial wherewithal to deal with the impacts of drilling in their communities, and will increase the budget challenges that Pennsylvania will face in the years to come,” he said.

Shale gas is extracted through a controversial process known as hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” in which a mixture of chemicals, sand and water are blasted into rock deep beneath the surface, creating fissures that release trapped gas.

Environmentalists have raised concerns that chemical leaks and spills at the surface of have polluted ground water but the industry insists the process is safe, a contention recently supported by Pennsylvania’s top environmental regulator. [ID:nN01279320] (Reporting by Daniel Trotta, Jon Hurdle and Joan Gralla; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Andrew Hay)