Scarnati Says Impact Fee Agreement Is Approaching

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.

January 31, 2012 | 11:40 AM

An impact fee update from Senate President Pro Tem Joe Scarnati, via the AP:

HARRISBURG, Pa. — Pennsylvania’s highest-ranking state senator says he thinks an agreement on a sweeping bill to impose a fee on the booming natural gas drilling industry can be finished in a week, right before Gov. Tom Corbett unveils his budget plan.
Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati said Monday that negotiators from the House, Senate and governor’s office are trying to agree on the size of the fee and the distribution of the money.
He says negotiators are working toward a “hybrid” solution to iron out differences over whether the state or the county that hosts the drilling should enforce the fee.
Scarnati says Senate negotiators are trying to make a final bill more appealing to advocates of allowing municipalities to regulate drilling activity than earlier proposals that passed the Senate.