Pa. Lawmaker Wants to Spend Impact Fee Money on Fracking Health Study

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.

February 8, 2013 | 4:20 PM

Susan Phillips / StateImpact Pennsylvania

Dr. Amy Pare says she has treated workers and residents who think gas drilling has made them sick. She supports funding for a statewide Marcellus Shale health impact study.

Suburban Philadelphia Republican State Sen. Stewart Greenleaf is working on a bill that would allocate $2 million from the state’s impact fee fund to study the public health impacts of Marcellus Shale drilling.
Greenleaf has circulated a memo about the bill, which would amend Act 13, the state’s new drilling law. Despite attempts by the state’s public health community, Act 13 passed without funds for a health registry. A similar bill sponsored by Sen. John Yudichak, a Democrat from Luzerne County, failed to gain any traction in the last legislative session.
Greenleaf says knowing any potential health impacts related to drilling is crucial.
“I don’t think we should be afraid of finding out if there’s a negative impact here,” Greenleaf told StateImpact. “That doesn’t mean we’re going to shut down drilling, not at all.”
Act 13 places an impact fee on every natural gas well in the Marcellus Shale formation. The levy will change from year to year, based on natural gas prices and the Consumer Price Index. In 2012, the state brought in more than $200 million.
Private health systems, including Geisinger Health Systems, Guthrie Health, and Susquehanna Health have already begun to research public health impacts of natural gas drilling. Greenleaf says funds from the impact fee could enhance their efforts.