Some House Dems Oppose More Gas Leases in State Forests
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
9 March 2010
By Tom Barnes,
HARRISBURG -- It's not too often that a governor faces a loud revolt by
members of his own party, but Reps. David Levdansky of Forward, Greg
Vitali of Delaware County and a dozen others are trying to block one of
Gov. Ed Rendell's revenue-raising ideas for fiscal 2010-11.
The Democratic House members, along with Republican Rep. Kate Harper of
Montgomery, called a news conference today to attack Mr. Rendell for
wanting to lease additional land in state forests as a way of
generating $180 million to balance the budget for the year starting
July 1.
They said that almost 700,000 acres of state forest land already has
been leased for natural gas drilling, which is almost half the 1.5
million acres of forest land that has gas-laden areas of Marcellus
shale beneath it. About 140,000 acres of forests have been leased in
just the last two years.
"We should not be using our most precious and pristine natural
resource, our state forests, to balance the state budget," Mr.
Levdansky said. "We care deeply about preserving this valuable asset.
Drilling in the forests for natural gas will turn them into a
checkerboard of pipelines and access roads. We have to stop this
(additional leasing) and stop it now."
If the opponents can stop the land-leasing idea, they would either have
to cut $180 million in spending from Mr. Rendell's $29 billion budget
for 2010-11, or come up with another source of revenue.
Mr. Levdansky and the others said they supported a new tax at the
wellhead, on the gas extracted from the underground shale areas, as a
way to generate $160 million for the 2010-11 budget and virtually make
up for the loss of the money from additional forest leasing. Natural
gas companies have opposed this extraction tax.
Mr. Rendell supports the extraction tax, but he wants to set aside the
money that would be raised into a separate "lock box" account. That
account also would contain new revenue from removing sales-tax
exemptions and from new taxes on tobacco to build a cushion for the
state from the loss of federal stimulus funds next year.
Bureau Chief Tom Barnes: tbarnes@post-gazette.com or 717-787-4254.