New Report: Housing and Marcellus Shale Development in PA
The Center for Rural Pennsylvania, a bipartisan, bicameral legislative agency that serves as a resource for rural policy within the Pennsylvania General Assembly, continues to pump out the reports on the Marcellus Shale and its impacts on the state. In January, the Center published their third report in the Marcellus series (see New Report: Marcellus Shale Drilling’s Impact on PA Schools). In February, they issued their fourth report (see Report: PA’s Youth Not Impressed with Marcellus Industry). In March? Yep–a fifth report. This one is titled “Housing and Marcellus Shale Development” (full copy below). This study takes a look at how you house all those Marcellus workers when they show up to start drilling–and does it affect rent prices?…
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Using the same class warfare language all Democrats resort to when they want to justify their enormous appetite for taxing and spending, yesterday Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf introduced the highest-ever budget in PA and attempted to lay a huge theft, in the form of a so-called severance tax, on the Marcellus industry by saying, “We deserve to be fairly compensated for the use of our resources.” Just one problem Tom: IT’S NOT YOUR RESOURCES! The resources in question belong to private landowners and your proposal to steal their money, along with the money of the drillers who risk a lot of capital to drill, is abhorrent. The justification is that the money stolen will be given “to the children”–by which he means given to teachers’ unions who turned out the vote for him. The Wolf budget landed yesterday–with a thud–and it calls for $1 billion in taxes on the Marcellus industry. Wolf thinks he can get buy-in by ensuring $225 million of that amount will be kept local, like the old “impact fee.” That’s the payoff to try and get support for this Marcellus-killing budget. He plans to fork over the rest of it to Big Education as their reward for voting for him. Even the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette calls his budget “a miss” and “utter folly.” Can you believe that? It’s so bad even the anti-drilling editors at the Post-Gazette don’t like it…
New applications filed Feb. 20 and 27 with the New York State Public Service Commission show that built-up areas of Windsor, NY (Broome County) are in line to be the first in a sequence of small town conversions to natural gas previously announced by Leatherstocking Gas Company, LLC. Assuming the Windsor application doesn’t hit any hitches with the state, Leatherstocking’s target date for installation is Fall 2015, according to Town Supervisor Carolyn Price. “It’s one of the most frequently asked questions I get,” Price told MDN Monday morning. “When am I going to get natural gas?” Price also said a number of Windsor residents, while they wait, have needed to replace furnaces, and they’ve been installing propane-fueled burners–because those are reported to be more easily switched over to natural gas, down the road…