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Wolf’s public land drilling ban latest gas industry hurdle

New Governor Tom Wolf says he wants the gas industry to thrive in Pennsylvania.

He’s got a strange way of showing it.

Within two weeks of taking office, Wolf restored the ban on new drilling leases on public land.

And there is little doubt he will be seeking to make good soon on a pledge to impose a 5-percent extraction tax on natural gas drilling to raise money for public schools and other programs.

When he signed the order restoring the drilling ban on public lands, Wolf reiterated he wants the industry to thrive with appropriate environmental safeguards.

We were under the impression those appropriate safeguards were already in place and being executed by the state Department of Environmental Protection.

We would better understand the public lands drilling ban if the natural gas drilling process left ugly scars all over these public lands. But the drilling takes place well below the surface of the lands.

Wolf says that, done right, the natural gas drilling can create “really good jobs and a great industry.”

It’s already doing that. This ban and the tax he wants to impose are going to impede the continuation of what the industry already is doing.

And, in the long term, revenues to the industry will be contracted which will mean less money coming into Pennsylvania’s coffers eventually.

And that’s a strange way to raise the revenue necessary to cut into the budget deficit the state is now facing.

The answer is to allow the drilling process to continue as it was the past four years with an emphasis on proper environmental controls being strictly enforced.

It’s not smart for a new governor to be drawing battle lines with the industry that probably holds the economic key to Pennsylvania’s future.

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