The Westmoreland Conservation District Board of Directors supports:

• Adoption of a severance tax in Pennsylvania that extends not only to Marcellus shale but to all natural gas extraction

• Dedicating a percentage of the severance tax proceeds to the Conservation District Fund to support the natural resource protection work of county conservation districts

• Dedicating additional, individual portions of the severance tax proceeds to counties and municipalities, the Environmental Stewardship Fund, the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission, and the Pennsylvania Game Commission

• Returning 100% of the severance tax generated within a county to the above appropriations within that county.

Our board certainly understands that there is reluctance to pass a new tax in this depressed economy.   However, the severance tax model is both established and proven.  Twenty-seven of the 32 states that produce natural gas charge a severance tax for its production.  States such as Wyoming and Oklahoma use a portion of the tax income for natural resource protection.

Additionally, a year-long study by the League of Women Voters found that severance tax will not dampen industry’s development of the Marcellus Shale deposit, so it is unlikely that jobs or revenue would be lost.

We ask you to join with us in encouraging our elected officials to take the difficult but necessary action of voting to create a severance tax on all natural gas extraction…and dedicating a reasonable portion of it for natural resource protection.