Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center: Responsible Growth: Protecting the Public Interest with a Natural Gas Severance Tax

Currently, Pennsylvania is the only major fossil fuel-producing state that does not levy a mineral extraction, or severance, tax to recover some of the costs borne by citizens and to compensate them for the loss of a finite natural resource. Levying a tax on natural gas extraction will help achieve both of these goals. The revenue collected can serve as a bridge to the future – paying for unanticipated costs and helping to reinvent boom-time communities after the minerals are gone. As Governor Mike Beebe of Arkansas said when seeking a significant increase in his state’s severance tax, “We do not want to hurt a wonderful industry and economic boon to our state that’s providing jobs and resources. But we do want them to pay for posterity and fairness and equity; a severance tax that is designed to pay for a nonrenewable, finite resource that our children and grandchildren won’t have the benefit of.”

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