Pro-Severance Tax Unions Give 600% More than O&G to PA Campaigns

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Rep. Greg Vitali

Pennsylvania State Rep. Greg Vitali, from the Philadelphia area, is an environmental extremist. In the past, he’s floated plans to force Pennsylvanians to use less natural gas (see PA Rep. Vitali Wants to Force Residents to Use LESS Natgas). Nobody, except some media outlets, pay any attention to him. He’s so far left even his own party has disowned him, removing a committee assignment from him and reassigning personnel away from his office (see Radical Democrat PA House Member Tossed to Curb by his Own Party). But Vitali needs to keep his name in the news–for reelection purposes. So a few weeks ago he popped back up again with a faux report that says “the system is rigged” in Harrisburg with respect to failing to pass a severance tax. That the reason a severance tax is not enacted is, according to Vitali, because of the money spent by Big Oil & Gas on lobbying and in campaign contributions. Of course mainstream media covers this nonsense without ever bothering to verify the claims. Here’s the facts Vitali won’t tell you in his report. While Marcellus industry PACs did spend $1.1 million last year in campaign contributions, government union PACs spent a whopping $7.8 million in campaign contributions! Of that, some $2.7 million was spent by Big Education unions–the same unions that contributed money to Vitali’s campaign. Huh. That fact got conveniently left out of all the reporting about the “unfair” advantage the Marcellus industry has. Let’s see, unions (in favor of the severance tax) are spending $7.8 million around, while shale (against the jobs-killing tax) is spending $1.1 million. Unions are spending 600% more than the shale industry–yet the shale industry has an “unfair” advantage. Tell us again how that works, Rep. Vitali…

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