Q Poll: Pennsylvanians Are Pro-Drilling, But Want To See It Taxed

Scott Detrow

Recent Stories

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.

September 29, 2011 | 12:00 PM

Today’s Quinnipiac University poll contains some nuggets about where Pennsylvanians stand on natural gas drilling, as the Post-Gazette reports:

In other issues, voters said by 62-30 percent that the economic benefits of drilling for natural gas in Marcellus Shale outweigh environmental concerns. Democrats also back drilling by 50-41 percent. Voters favor by 64-27 percent a new tax on gas drilling companies, with 51-37 percent support among Republicans.
The results fall in line with several other polls we’ve seen this year: people think drilling provides jobs, but they want to see it taxed and regulated.

Here’s the full Q-Poll, which also gives Republican Governor Tom Corbett his highest approval rating to-date.