As House Prepares To Debate Impact Fee, Corbett Threatens Veto

Scott Detrow

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Scott Detrow is a congressional correspondent for NPR. He also co-hosts the NPR Politics Podcast.

Detrow joined NPR in 2015 to cover the presidential election. He focused on the Republican side of the 2016 race, spending time on the campaign trail with Donald Trump, and also reported on the election's technology and data angles.

Detrow worked as a statehouse reporter for member stations WITF in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and KQED in San Francisco, California. He has also covered energy policy for NPR's StateImpact project, where his reports on Pennsylvania's hydraulic fracturing boom won a DuPont-Columbia and national Edward R. Murrow Award in 2013.

June 28, 2011 | 3:05 PM

Well, this will certainly throw some cold water on this afternoon’s planned impact fee debate in the House.
From the AP:

[Governor] Corbett, on his way to sign a bill to alter how liability is apportioned for civil lawsuits, told The Associated Press he would veto anything that passes before a panel he appointed reports to him with recommendations, which are expected next month.

Asked why House Republicans were taking up the measure despite his veto threat, the governor said: “Ask them.”

Nearly 7 in 10 Pennsylvanians support some sort of tax or fee on natural gas drilling, and the new House GOP bill, authored by Dave Reed, brings the number levies in front of the General Assembly to at least six. This measure won’t win the support of House Democrats, who are pushing for a more robust tax. “”The money it raises is inconsequential over the life of a well,” caucus spokesman Bill Patton told the AP. “We’re talking on the order of 1 percent or less as an effective tax rate.”