Opinion at PennLive, Sep 13
By Sam Bernhardt, Pennsylvania Director at the national advocacy group Food & Water Watch.
The early summer budget battles in Harrisburg have mostly faded from view, but a larger fight is looming over Governor Tom Wolf’s top policy priority this fall: Creating a slush fund backed by fracking bonds.
The governor’s office has a more appealing name for their plan. “Restore Pennsylvania” is supposed to be a clever way to fund new infrastructure projects. But the governor’s scheme is a new spin on an old idea: A ‘severance tax’ on gas drilling. Wolf has tried and failed with this approach several times before, so this time he added a twist: Selling $4.5 billion in bonds, and plowing that money into a laundry list of public works projects and business-friendly incentives. The money would be paid back by a new tax on fracking….
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