Letter to the Editor | Shale suggestion ‘ludicrous’ | Centre Daily Times

The front-page article, “Big gas groups protest taxes” (CDT 6/21/14), is darkly humorous. The suggestion that placing a severance tax on their industry would have “economic repercussions,” is ludicrous. I hope we get a tax, and I hope there are positive “economic repercussions” for Pennsylvania’s taxpayers.

The energy companies have destroyed the water in West Virginia, Ohio and several other states. Their owners and share holders make huge profits while the citizens of the states they’ve ruined suffer “repercussions” and foot the bill for repairing the environment they have destroyed, if it can be repaired at all.

It’s about time we make them “pay as they go.” I’m sick of the threats. What are they going to do, move the whole of northern Pennsylvania to some other “tax friendly” state? The Marcellus Shale belongs to the citizens of Pennsylvania. They should be compensated for the gas in that area and for the damage fracking causes. That gas is going to remain there whether we tax it today or in the future.

Frances G. Scalise

State College