On Wednesday, the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center issued a report entitled Responsible Growth: Protecting the Public Interest with a Natural Gas Severance Tax, asserting that a well-structured severance tax will protect Pennsylvania taxpayers from the public costs associated with increased drilling in the state. More generally, it looks at the potential costs of natural gas drilling on taxpayers and the environment, how other states structure severance taxes, and the lessons that can be learned from those structures. A copy can be found here.
Pennsylvania producers - through their trade associations, primarily - have opposed new severance taxes on the industry, pointing out their adverse impacts on prices and development.