How Corbett Could Support an Impact Fee Without Angering Norquist

 

Tim Sloan / AFP/Getty Images

ATR pres­i­dent Grover Norquist

Gov­er­nor Corbett’s Mar­cel­lus Shale Advi­sory Com­mis­sion will rec­om­mend an impact fee on gas drillers in its final report, due out Fri­day. That being the case, Grover Norquist’s group, Amer­i­cans for Tax Reform, is offer­ing help­ful hints on how to imple­ment a levy on energy com­pa­nies with­out vio­lat­ing its “Tax­payer Pro­tec­tion Pledge.”

Cor­bett, of course, made the ATR pledge a cen­tral theme of his cam­paign for gov­er­nor. So far, he’s been able to stick to the “no new taxes” promise, but the Repub­li­can has said he’s wait­ing for the com­mis­sion to weigh in, before he decides whether or not to endorse a levy on drillers.

In an inter­view with StateIm­pact, ATR’s direc­tor of state affairs, Patrick Glea­son, said a fee “could be done in a pledge-compliant way” under cer­tain con­di­tions. “If [the com­mis­sion and law­mak­ers] are dead-set on doing that, we believe the most ben­e­fi­cial way would be to pro­vide broad-based tax relief. The two most obvi­ous exam­ples are reduc­ing the cor­po­rate tax rate…and the per­sonal income tax.”

Glea­son wrote an edi­to­r­ial in Tuesday’s Philadel­phia Inquirer mak­ing the same argu­ment. “Given that the energy indus­try has gen­er­ated more than $7 bil­lion in taxes, roy­al­ties, lease pay­ments, and fees in the state over the past five years, along with tens of thou­sands of high-paying jobs,” he wrote, “any tax on drilling should be con­sid­ered only as a way of pro­vid­ing broad-based, pro-growth tax relief.”

ATR’s pledge allows law­mak­ers and gov­er­nors to raise taxes, pro­vid­ing they off­set the increase with a reduc­tion in other levies. But the com­mis­sion is rec­om­mend­ing an impact fee to address spe­cific demands on local gov­ern­ments – not to lower taxes across the com­mon­wealth. “What our charge was from the gov­er­nor was to deter­mine whether or not there were uncom­pen­sated impacts that might require an impact fee,” explained Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor Jim Caw­ley on Fri­day. “And in some cases, we did in fact find that there are.”

Corbett’s adher­ence to the ATR pledge infu­ri­ated Democ­rats dur­ing this year’s bud­get cycle, and the minor­ity party isn’t exactly receiv­ing Gleason’s input with open arms. “Hav­ing Grover Norquist be the ref­eree – the unelected ref­eree – on how pub­lic pol­icy is deter­mined is noth­ing short of out­ra­geous,” opined House Demo­c­ra­tic Cau­cus Sec­re­tary Dan Frankel.

“We tell Demo­c­ra­tic law­mak­ers they should be mad at Penn­syl­va­nia vot­ers, and not at us,” said Glea­son, who’s used to hear­ing sim­i­lar com­plaints from leg­is­la­tors across the county. “The pledge was a com­mit­ment Cor­bett made to Penn­syl­va­ni­ans. …He ran on that. It was no secret that he would not raise taxes. And Penn­syl­va­nia vot­ers elected him.”

Of course, 69 per­cent of those same fickle vot­ers sup­port a tax or fee on drillers.