SALEM, Ohio — Pennsylvania communities that restrict oil and gas activity could lose crucial funding as proposed in a new state senate bill.
Pennsylvania Senate Bill 102, sponsored by state Sen. Camera Bartolotta, R-Monongahela, would pull impact fee funding from communities that “unreasonably” restrict oil and gas drilling.
The Pennsylvania Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee advanced the bill in a 7-4 vote on May 7.
The bill comes at a time when some communities in western Pennsylvania are seeking to increase oil and gas well pad setback distances from residential homes and businesses, as more studies have linked the proximity of oil and gas wells to health impacts.
Critics of the legislation say it’s punishing local lawmakers who are doing what they can to protect their residents from the harms of living near oil and gas activity.
“It is effectively going to cut off these municipalities from these fees that the state, our legislature, have agreed should be paid to these communities as a way to compensate them to host natural gas development,” said Ethan Story, advocacy director for the Center for Coalfield Justice.
What is the impact fee?
The impact fee was established in Pennsylvania Act 13, passed in 2012, to offset the impacts of unconventional oil and gas drilling in hosting communities. Impact fees typically fund infrastructure improvements, emergency preparedness and environmental programs.
Well operators pay a tax for each well drilled in a township, with the price determined by the average price of natural gas at the time. The impact fee is distributed by the Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission.
Senate Bill 102 “ensures that the original intent of Act 13 is upheld,” said Bartoletta at the Pennsylvania Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee hearing.
“The impact fee was specifically designed to compensate municipalities hosting or neighboring natural gas development for their impacts that they experience,” said Bartoletta. “These funds were never intended for communities that actively block the responsible use of Pennsylvania’s natural resources.”
The bill would prohibit PA PUC from distributing impact fee funding to municipalities that impose “unreasonable restrictions” on oil and gas drilling. The bill would also require the state agency to withhold funds while any litigation challenging the validity of a local zoning ordinance is pending.
Pennsylvania municipalities have had the right to determine their own zoning rules regarding oil and gas drilling since 2013, when the Pennsylvania Supreme Court struck down a portion of Act 13 that restricted municipal zoning power over oil and gas development.
The bill is unclear on whether PA PUC would withhold impact fee funding for restrictions on future wells or for both future and already existing wells in the townships.
A ‘punishment’
While Bartolotta sees the bill as upholding the law, the minority chair of the Pennsylvania Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee, Sen. Carolyn Comitta, D-West Chester, sees the bill as a punishment for local elected officials.
“Respectively, I wish this majority would move my bill, with Sen. (Steven) Santarsiero, to increase well setbacks. But if we don’t, we shouldn’t try to punish elected officials who will,” said Comitta at the May 7 hearing. “If they are brave enough to better protect their constituents, we should applaud them, not penalize them.”
Comitta refers to Senate Bill 650, which she helped introduce in 2022 to increase unconventional oil and gas drilling setbacks from buildings and water wells to 2,500 feet and 5,000 feet to reservoirs, schools and hospitals.
In the bill and at the hearing, Comitta referred to numerous health studies that have found a link between proximity to oil and gas development and increased health impacts, including Pennsylvania’s 43rd statewide grand jury report and a study led by health researchers at the University of Pittsburgh.
The bill comes just months after a township in Bartolotta’s district significantly increased wellpad setbacks. Cecil Township, in Washington County, increased its setback distance from 500 feet from homes, the state minimum, to 2,500 feet, the number recommended by the grand jury report.
The ordinance, passed in November, is currently being challenged by energy company Range Resources, and is one of the largest setbacks adopted by a heavily-fracked community in western Pennsylvania.
“This does look like a targeted attack on Cecil and its community members,” Story said. He adds that if impact fee funding is cut, communities like Cecil could see an increase in damaged roads and underfunded emergency services and environmental programs.
According to PA PUC data, Pennsylvania counties received roughly $179 million from the impact fee in 2023. Of that funding, counties used over $9 million of it to fund emergency preparedness and public safety programs, the second largest use of the impact fee behind the capital reserve fund. Individual municipalities spent the most on public infrastructure construction, over $28 million.
Senate Bill 102 will move on to the full Pennsylvania Senate for consideration.
(Liz Partsch can be reached at epartsch@farmanddairy.com or 330-337-3419.)
