Corbett’s Commonwealth Secretary Praises Gas Drilling

Another mem­ber of Gov­er­nor Corbett’s cab­i­net is singing Mar­cel­lus Shale drilling’s praises. Appear­ing in State Col­lege today, Sec­re­tary of the Com­mon­wealth Carol Aichele cred­ited nat­ural gas extrac­tion with cre­at­ing thou­sands of jobs through­out Penn­syl­va­nia. “This kind of job cre­ation through­out our econ­omy is why Gov­er­nor Cor­bett is doing all he can to sup­port Mar­cel­lus Shale devel­op­ment in Penn­syl­va­nia,” she said, accord­ing to a Depart­ment of State press release.

The num­ber of jobs linked to drilling is debat­able. Ear­lier week, a Penn State study claimed the indus­try cre­ated 23,500 jobs in 2009 – about half of what an ear­lier PSU study had con­cluded, for the same time span.

Aichele’s pro-drilling com­ments mir­ror a mes­sage Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor Jim Caw­ley has been deliv­er­ing all sum­mer: drilling cre­ates jobs, and is good for Pennsylvania’s econ­omy. “Nat­ural gas is already pro­vid­ing thou­sands of jobs for Penn­syl­va­nia. You can see it right here at Cleve­land Broth­ers. They may not be drilling here, but jobs are being cre­ated here in Wilkes-Barre and across the state,” said Caw­ley, who chaired Gov­er­nor Corbett’s Mar­cel­lus Shale Advi­sory Com­mis­sion, dur­ing a visit to a Luzerne County equip­ment man­u­fac­turer last week. “To those who say Mar­cel­lus Shale is not ben­e­fit­ing Penn­syl­va­nia, I say come to Wilkes-Barre and see for your­self. Penn­syl­va­ni­ans are find­ing good jobs, and not just on the drilling rigs.”

Caw­ley has gone one step fur­ther dur­ing his cam­paign, blast­ing the idea of impos­ing a sev­er­ance tax  on gas extraction.

Drilling is the sec­ond polit­i­cal issue Achele has waded into this month. Last week, she argued in favor of a bill requir­ing vot­ers to present photo iden­ti­fi­ca­tion at the polls.

Here’s the full DOS release:

Sec­re­tary of Com­mon­wealth says Mar­cel­lus Shale is Cre­at­ing Finance Indus­try Jobs in Pennsylvania

State Col­lege – Sec­re­tary of the Com­mon­wealth Carol Aichele today out­lined the pos­i­tive job impact of the Mar­cel­lus Shale gas indus­try on the finan­cial sec­tor, and the Cor­bett Administration’s sup­port of future eco­nomic oppor­tu­ni­ties for finan­cial professionals.

“A Penn State study shows the Mar­cel­lus Shale indus­try has cre­ated about 4,200 jobs in the finance and insur­ance sec­tors,” Aichele told more than 150 cer­ti­fied pub­lic accoun­tants at a two-day con­fer­ence on Mar­cel­lus Shale issues, hosted by the Penn­syl­va­nia Insti­tute of CPAs in State Col­lege. “This kind of job cre­ation through­out our econ­omy is why Gov­er­nor Cor­bett is doing all he can to sup­port Mar­cel­lus Shale devel­op­ment in Pennsylvania.”

Penn­syl­va­nia Depart­ment of Labor and Indus­try sta­tis­tics indi­cate there were more than 218,000 in-state jobs in Mar­cel­lus Shale core and ancil­lary indus­tries by the end of 2010.

The Depart­ment of State, which licenses 29 pro­fes­sions includ­ing accoun­tants, is work­ing with the State Board of Accoun­tancy to encour­age con­tin­u­ing edu­ca­tion providers to offer courses deal­ing specif­i­cally with Mar­cel­lus Shale devel­op­ment in Penn­syl­va­nia, Aichele said. The board will accept Mar­cel­lus Shale courses pro­vided by an approved pro­gram spon­sor and con­tribut­ing directly to the main­te­nance of pro­fes­sional com­pe­tence of a CPA or pub­lic accountant.

“Hav­ing spe­cific train­ing in the many areas of busi­ness and per­sonal income and taxes aris­ing from the Mar­cel­lus Shale indus­try will pro­vide oppor­tu­ni­ties for our license hold­ers to increase their busi­ness, and cre­ate jobs in the finan­cial ser­vices indus­try,” Aichele said. “By pro­vid­ing con­tin­u­ing edu­ca­tion courses from approved pro­gram spon­sors, we can assure busi­nesses and indi­vid­u­als receiv­ing income from Mar­cel­lus Shale they can have con­fi­dence in our license hold­ers to give sound advice and make the most of this eco­nomic opportunity.”

Aichele said this pol­icy dove­tails with the Penn­syl­va­nia Insti­tute of CPAs’ cre­ation of a Mar­cel­lus Shale task force to iden­tify ways for finan­cial pro­fes­sion­als to take advan­tage of this grow­ing indus­try in Pennsylvania.