The plan for fixing public schools: Fracking?
Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
The Democratic candidates for governor want you to believe in the natural-gas-to-education tax pipeline. But is it worth it?
Matthew Smith
Gov. Tom Corbett’s deep cuts to education funding have plunged schools into crisis. Each of the Democratic gubernatorial candidates has promised to reverse those cuts, and turned to taxing the state’s booming natural-gas industry as a way to do it.
Most of the candidates have called for a severance tax on production of roughly 5 percent; Rob McCord wants a 10-percent tax.
There are no doubt other places to raise money, but, perhaps, none that are so popular. A recent poll found 71 percent of respondents want the state to share in revenues from taxing fracking. States like West Virginia and Texas impose significant taxes.
But Corbett, a major recipient of energy-company donations, opposes a severance tax and insists that it would drive friendly job-creators from the state.
Corbett did impose a so-called fracking “impact fee” that sends a smaller sum mostly to the affected communities. He has thus managed to anger anti-tax Tea Party conservatives without placating his political enemies, leaving himself without strong political support and facing vehement opposition.
But there’s a wrinkle. None of these fracking-tax proposals sit well with environmental activists concerned about water pollution, who want a drilling moratorium.
The primary pits two progressive priorities against each other and, needless to say, militant anti-drilling activists don’t have a candidate. Their presence is mostly limited to activists popping up from the crowd at forums to denounce fracking.
Democrats’ support for fracking, at first blush, also reflects a political calculus: 64 percent of voters favor the natural-gas industry while just 27 percent oppose it.
But a strong majority of voters also say they would support a moratorium on fracking, and oppose opening more state forest land to drilling.
All the Democratic candidates, unlike Corbett, are critical of drilling in state forests and in the Delaware River Basin. But none of them have embraced the moratorium activists demand.
That might be because environmentalists are having trouble getting people’s attention. Just 1 percent of respondents cited the environment as their top concern while 32 percent cited schools.
