Leadership-Backed Amendment Eliminates House Bill's Local Preemptions | StateImpact Pennsylvania Skip Navigation

Leadership-Backed Amendment Eliminates House Bill's Local Preemptions

Update: after a lengthy floor debate, the amendment passed just before 7:30 PM on a 110-85 vote.
A major development in the impact fee debate is underway on the House floor.
Republican Representative Matt Baker has offered an amendment eliminating HB 1950’s language “superseding and preempting” local zoning regulations. His amendment, which is backed by House Republican leadership, would mirror the language in SB 1100, which the Senate is expected to pass later this evening.
Instead of an across-the-board ban on local ordinances, the measure would

let town­ships and bor­oughs set their own drilling reg­u­la­tions, as long as the restric­tions are in line with zon­ing for other types of con­struc­tion and man­u­fac­tur­ing sites.
If a driller views a munic­i­pal­i­ties’ zon­ing as unrea­son­able, it can appeal to the Attor­ney Gen­eral. And if the AG agrees, the local gov­ern­ment wouldn’t receive any impact fee money.

Here’s the amendment:

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