Tell PA Representatives: It’s Time to Tax Natural Gas Drillers

From the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center (http://www.pennbpc.org):

There is still a lot of work to be done in Harrisburg before state legislators can say they have a complete, balanced budget.

We’ve all been working hard to make sure the budget is balanced with real, sustainable sources of revenue, but members of the General Assembly would rather find revenue by trying to squeeze money out of Medicaid recipients, who are overwhelmingly children, people with disabilities, seniors, and families with disabled children.

Instead of balancing the budget on the backs of our most vulnerable citizens, there’s a better way.

We need to tell our state representatives that the right way to balance the budget is to enact a tax on natural gas drillers—go to https://actionnetwork.org/letters/its-time-to-tax-gas-drillers-in-pennsylvania to act.

In the last few days, a bipartisan group of legislators is making a renewed effort to create a tax on natural gas drillers, also known as a severance tax. Pennsylvania is still the only major gas-producing state that does not have such a tax. But Republican Speaker of the House Mike Turzai has been unwilling to allow such a vote.

We need to ask our Representatives to insist that Speaker Turzai allow a vote on the natural gas drillers tax, and urge them to vote for it when it reaches the floor.

Representative Kate Harper (R-Montgomery County) has introduced a drilling tax plan with bipartisan-support that would raise over $400 million in 2017-18.

Click here to use our easy online tool to quickly send a letter to your state representative to urge him/her to fight for a tax on natural gas drillers instead of asking our most vulnerable families to foot the bill.

Thank you for all that you do.