Senate Republicans, including Scarnati, have said they would have supported a tax but couldn't reach a compromise with Rendell.
Drew Crompton, Scarnati's legal counsel and chief of staff, said there was nothing wrong with Scarnati's accepting the free trip, which is permitted under Pennsylvania ethics rules.
Scarnati might reimburse Consol for some of the costs, Crompton said.
Consol executives and lobbyists have contributed more than $15,000 to Scarnati's campaigns since 2006, state records show.
It's not known whether Consol paid for any other legislators to attend the game last Sunday in Arlington, Texas, won by the Green Bay Packers, 31-25. A brief company statement said that Consol "had several guests join us at the Super Bowl," and that the expenses would be reported on its next lobbying disclosure report. Consol would not identify the other guests.
Tickets to the Super Bowl are hard to find and can end up costing fans hundreds or thousands of dollars above face value. The NFL doesn't sell any tickets to the public, instead offering only a portion of them through a random drawing.
Pennsylvania law allows legislators to accept such tickets and travel so long as they report everything above a $650 annual threshold.
"There's nothing illegal about it, but it does show the undue influence industry has over elected officials," said Jan Jarrett, president of Citizens for Pennsylvania's Future, an environmental advocacy organization that has pushed for taxes and tighter regulations on natural-gas drilling.
"It really creates an uneven playing field between those who've got the resources to buy that kind of influence and those who don't," she said.
