Frackers Making Landowners Pay PA. Impact Fees, Even Though It is Forbidden in the State Law

[JPZenger]

http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/local/marcellusshale/marcellus-leases-pushing-impact-fees-on-landowners-707727/

[Curmudgeoness]

1. There is so much wrong with this, but I am not surprised.

What I am surprised with is that the law says they cannot deduct an impact fee, but now it "may be legal" if the lease has it included. And, of course, when the oil company rep is going over all the details of the lease, they are not mentioning this. Scum.

And we already know that the gas companies are lower than a snake's ass, but they even had the nerve to lie to the legislators.

"One of the talking points that the industry used is [that an] impact fee, unlike a severance tax, would not be deducted from royalties," said state Rep. Jesse White, D-Cecil, who introduced a bill in June that reiterates the prohibition on severance tax and impact fee deductions from royalties.

"The understanding was that under the current definition of the way things were, a severance tax would have been a permissible post-deduction cost, but an impact fee would not have been because it's not a tax."

So the "industry", who basically told our legislators what they would and would not accept in a law, said that they would NOT deduct impact fees, but would deduct a severance tax......and now, they are deducting them. When you lie with dogs, yadda yadda.