Environmentalists Rally Against Impact Fee Bill

Susan Phillips

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Susan Phillips tells stories about the consequences of political decisions on people's every day lives. She has worked as a reporter for WHYY since 2004. Susan's coverage of the 2008 Presidential election resulted in a story on the front page of the New York Times. In 2010 she traveled to Haiti to cover the earthquake. That same year she produced an award-winning series on Pennsylvania's natural gas rush called "The Shale Game." She received a 2013 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Journalism Award for her work covering natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania. She has also won several Edward R. Murrow awards for her work with StateImpact. In 2013/14 she spent a year at MIT as a Knight Science Journalism Fellow. She has also been a Metcalf Fellow, an MBL Logan Science Journalism Fellow and reported from Marrakech on the 2016 climate talks as an International Reporting Project Fellow. A graduate of Columbia School of Journalism, she earned her Bachelor's degree in International Relations from George Washington University.

January 17, 2012 | 12:03 PM

$frack protest$

Todd Vachon / WHYY/Newsworks.org

Hundreds of protestors rally outside the Shale Gas Insight Conference in downtown Philadelphia in September, 2011.org

A coalition of environmental groups are in Harrisburg today, rallying against a legislative proposal that would strip local municipalities of zoning authority over natural gas drilling. The groups say House Bill 1150 and Senate Bill 1100, while imposing an impact fee on gas drillers, would also grant drilling companies too much influence. They say a provision leaves local officials ham-strung when it comes to deciding such things as locations of wells, pipeline compressor stations and waste storage.

“This bill is the antithesis of local control and represents a serious threat to democratic decision making by Pennsylvania communities,” said Maria Payan, Director of Peach Bottom Concerned Citizens Group. “Will we be allowed to use local zoning laws to protect the public health, safety and public welfare, or will our state enact a law to accommodate the oil and gas industry and their high-paid lobbyists?”

A press release sent out by the Delaware Riverkeeper says the state Constitution and the Municipalities Planning Code grant authority to local officials “to address local environmental and public resources.”
Among the groups protesting in Harrisburg today are the Sierra Club, the League of Women Voters, PennEnvironment, Clean Water Action, and Protecting Our Waters.