HARRISBURG - Gov. Rendell on Thursday said the effort to strike a deal this year on a natural gas tax was "dead," finally uttering the one word that no one had dared even whisper about the issue.
In doing so, the governor blamed legislative Republicans, saying they have refused for weeks to "negotiate in good faith" on establishing a tax rate for drilling in the Marcellus Shale, and accusing them of pandering to the drilling industry at the expense of Pennsylvania's taxpayers.
"They clearly desire to put the costs of natural gas drilling on the backs of Pennsylvania taxpayers, rather than on the large multinational oil and gas corporations who stand to reap enormous wealth from our state's resources," Rendell said in a statement Thursday morning.
He argued that failing to enact a tax will harm the environment, make it harder for local governments to deal with the impact of drilling, and cost the state millions in revenue at a time when it desperately needs it.
Legislative Republicans were quick to refute the governor's accusations, saying they have worked for months not just to establish a fair tax rate, but to tackle a whole host of regulatory and safety issues related to drilling.
"We are surprised by the governor's unilateral decision to end negotiations on Marcellus Shale issues," said Erik Arneson, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi (R., Delaware).
He added: "We are willing to continue negotiations . . . We hope the governor will reconsider his position."
But the chances of the two sides having a meeting of the minds, this late in the legislative season, are slim.
That means that any future substantive negotiating on the issue will happen with a new governor: either Republican Tom Corbett or Democrat Dan Onorato. Rendell's second and last term ends in mid-January.
Corbett has said during the campaign that he is against a natural gas tax. Onorato supports taxing natural gas from the Marcellus Shale.
In the meantime, gas companies continue to plumb the Marcellus Shale formation, which lies beneath most of the state, without paying a levy on what they produce. That makes Pennsylvania the largest natural-gas-producing state without such a tax.
A coalition of gas companies drilling in Pennsylvania has said it would support what it calls a "competitively structured" tax if it were part of a larger package of legislative and regulatory changes.
