PA Anti-Drilling Auditor General Bashes Impact Fee Spending

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Since he assumed office in 2013, Auditor General Eugene DePasquale has had a chip on his shoulder when it comes to the Marcellus Shale (see Newly Elected PA Auditor General Targets DEP First Day on Job). He put together a sham report on the DEP, calling attention to “problems” fixed years earlier, before he assumed office (see DEP to DePasquale: Problems Fixed Years Ago, Where Have You Been?). He couldn’t discredit the Marcellus industry via the DEP, so he started on a new track–the millions of dollars raised in a severance tax-like fee called the impact fee (see PA Auditor General to Investigate “Lost” $30M Marcellus Impact Fee). In March 2016 DePasquale announced he will conduct a thorough anal exam, er, a, audit of all Act 13 impact fee money distributed to towns and municipalities (see PA Auditor General Commits to Half-an-Audit of Shale Impact Fee $). At the time we pointed out that 60% of the impact fee revenue raised goes to local towns and municipalities where drilling occurs, but the other 40% goes into the black hole of politicians’ sticky fingers in Harrisburg. If DePasquale doesn’t audit the other 40%, he’s only done half-an-audit. DePasquale has released his biased audit and yep, he didn’t bother to look at the 40% being spent by his cronies in Harrisburg–he only concentrated on the money going to local governments. And even then he didn’t find much, but he’s conflated it into a big press release and his sycophants in the media are regurgitating it with damning headlines…

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