The bill also sets environmental and safety standards - not to the extent some critics had hoped - and addresses the thorny question of how much control municipalities get over whether to drill, and where. A county where drilling occurs can opt not to impose the fee - but half its municipalities can band together and force it to dun drillers after all.
On another point of fierce contention, the bill makes municipalities allow drilling in residential-zoned areas, but lets them apply zoning restrictions, as they do on other industries, on such collateral effects as lighting and noise.
The industry has been largely silent on the bill. Some environmental groups have lambasted it as a giveaway that does little to safeguard the environment. "This bill proves the adage 'money talks,' as the governor and the General Assembly adopted everything the deep-pocketed drilling interests wanted," said Jan Jarrett, president of PennFuture, a statewide group.
The Renew Growing Greener Coalition - the largest consortium of environmental, recreation and conservation groups in the state - pointed out that the fee proceeds will also help restore two depleted environmental funds that pay for long-term pollution cleanup projects.
Legislators from both parties have since 2009 slugged it out at the negotiating table over whether to enact any levy on drilling. Near the end of his tenure, then-Gov. Ed Rendell fought bitterly with Republicans for a severance tax, but the sides could not reach a compromise.
Then Corbett, running on a no-new-taxes pledge and with ample backing from the natural gas industry, was elected.
The Senate, led by President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati (R., Jefferson), pushed for an impact fee last year, but neither Corbett nor the House wanted it. It created tensions within the party.
