Capitolwire: Impact Fee Deal Taking Shape

With Penn­syl­va­nia leg­is­la­tors back in Har­ris­burg after the hol­i­day break, Capi­tol­wire is report­ing slow but steady process toward an agree­ment on a nat­ural gas drilling impact fee.

When we last left off, the House had “non-concurred” on the Senate’s lat­est ver­sion of a bill impos­ing a levy on each gas well, and over­haul­ing Pennsylvania’s drilling reg­u­la­tions. The move was designed to set up a joint House-Senate con­fer­ence committee.

Cor­bett says his goal is a final bill before next month’s bud­get address, which will set the 2012 leg­isla­tive agenda.

Here’s Capitolwire’s update:

[Gov­er­nor Tom] Cor­bett and House GOP lead­ers want the fees to total $160,000 over a decade per well. The Sen­ate has pro­posed a fee that starts at $50,000 per well, and over 20 years, comes to $360,000 per well.

A com­pro­mise plan to lop off the last 10 years of the Sen­ate plan, mak­ing the fee $260,000 per well over 10 years, is ten­ta­tively being exam­ined by both sides. Depend­ing on the num­ber of wells being drilled, that could bring up to $150 mil­lion in ini­tial rev­enues, esti­mates say.

In exchange for rais­ing the fee halfway to Sen­ate lev­els, the gov­er­nor and House GOP lead­ers would get a key con­ces­sion: the fee would be imposed by coun­ties. The Sen­ate has asked for an addi­tional pro­vi­sion added to that, which is that if the county com­mis­sion­ers opt out of a fee, the county would have to impose the fee if munic­i­pal­i­ties rep­re­sent­ing 50 per­cent of the county voted to opt into the fee.