Taking A Look – Literally – At Last Month's Impact Fee Debate | StateImpact Pennsylvania Skip Navigation

Taking A Look – Literally – At Last Month's Impact Fee Debate

Getty Images

The state Capitol


There’s no question the natural gas impact fee legislators passed into law last month – now known as Act 13 – was a very partisan piece of legislation. Just ten Republicans voted against the bill in the House, while only two Democrats supported it.
Democrats like Mike Hanna calling the legislation a “sham,” “sweetheart deal,” and “ridiculous.” House Republican leaders made it clear they didn’t love the bill – they were wary about its per-well fee, but Majority Leader Mike Turzai called it “a commonsense solution” that would protect the environment while boosting the drilling industry.
At times it was hard to believe they were talking about the same piece of legislation.
But when you grouped the two days of House speeches all together, would Democrats’ concerns about “giveaways” look any different than Republicans’ talks of job creation?
StateImpact Pennsylvania decided to find out, by acquiring the debate’s unofficial transcript from the House Clerk’s office, and using Wordle.net to create word clouds visualizing Democrats’ and Republicans’ speeches.
The Democrats delivered more than 22,000 words-worth of commentary on the bill. Here’s what it looks like:


 
Republicans didn’t speak nearly as long as Democrats. Altogether, GOP lawmakers’ remarks totaled 11,600 words.

 
Some notes: these word clouds do not include parliamentary inquiries – just lawmakers’ remarks on the bill. We also removed “Mr. Speaker” and “Pennsylvania” from the clouds, since those three words would have dominated both visualizations, given the way legislators speak on the House floor.

Up Next

Alternative Energy Can Be Unpredictable