When It Comes To An Impact Fee, It’s A House (Caucus) Divided

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Pennsylvania’s state Capitol

Until now, House Repub­li­cans have been largely mute, in the debate over whether or not to impose an impact fee on nat­ural gas drillers. There are a few dynam­ics behind that silence: first and fore­most, Major­ity Leader Mike Turzai and other House GOP lead­ers sim­ply have other non-Shale pri­or­i­ties, namely pri­va­tiz­ing state-owned liquor stores.

A new col­umn from Capitolwire’s Pete DeCoursey high­lights another expla­na­tion: Repub­li­cans are sim­ply divided over how large – or small – of a levy they want to enact, and whether or not it should stay on the county level, or be col­lected by the state.

Because for the 50 to 60 House GOP mem­bers who live in or near shale ter­ri­tory, and might vote for a bill, the Murt/DiGirolamo pro­posal is way too hot, mean­ing expen­sive, for them.

But for east­ern mem­bers, the Cor­bett $50-million-or-so plan – with noth­ing for their dis­tricts – is way too cold.

With­out 80 to 90 House GOP votes, the Democ­rats will demand a big fee/tax bill that will knock down the GOP votes for the bill to three-dozen or so.

Also, it is not clear where that third bowl of por­ridge, the one that all the Goldilock­ses will think is just right, is: Is it at $200 mil­lion a year? $150 mil­lion? $300 million?

Sen­ate Repub­li­can and Demo­c­ra­tic lead­ers believe the $200 mil­lion to $250 mil­lion range is where the bill should come in.

But that is too rich for many House shale Repub­li­cans, and short of what many east­ern GOP­ers and shale Democ­rats want to vote for.

House GOP lead­ers want to stick to a Corbett-style plan, at least ini­tially when they get some­thing past the House for step one, then gen­er­ate seri­ous nego­ti­a­tions with the gov­er­nor and Senate.

But they need more money and will either ear­mark $100 mil­lion or so from fee pro­ceeds or future shale roy­al­ties on already-leased state land to pay for the envi­ron­men­tal pro­grams favored by non-Shale law­mak­ers, includ­ing farm­land, park­land and for­est preser­va­tion, and Grow­ing Greener, The Next Generation.

It’s been sev­eral weeks since Cor­bett rolled out his impact fee pro­posal. We’re expect­ing to see the governor’s plans in actual bill form next week.