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House Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
House of Representatives
Session of 2013 - 2014
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | August 23, 2013 04:00 PM |
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| From: | Representative Rick Saccone |
| To: | All House members |
| Subject: | The repair of structurally deficient bridges via proceeds from natural gas exploration on state lands |
| In the near future, I plan on introducing legislation that would require DCNR to make 300,000 acres of state owned land available for natural gas development. All payments and royalties generated from the newly leased land will be deposited into a restricted account in the Motor License Fund to be used for the repair of weight restricted bridges. PennDOT recently added or increased weight restrictions on 1,000 structurally deficient bridges because, according to Secretary Schoch, the legislature failed to approve a multibillion dollar transportation funding plan that included tax and fee increases. I do not believe that the legislature should be considering tax and fee increases. Instead, we need to ensure that public dollars and state resources are being used efficiently; we need to live within our means. Rather than taking more money from the taxpayers of Pennsylvania, we need to consider other sources of funding, such as royalties and payments from natural gas development on state owned land. In 2010, Governor Rendell issued an executive order that placed a moratorium on the leasing of state forest lands for natural gas development. Due to this executive order, Marcellus shale under approximately 800,000 acres of state forest land cannot be explored and developed unless the General Assembly takes legislative action. Under my legislation, DCNR would be required to publicly auction at least 300,000 acres of land over 3 fiscal years for natural gas exploration and development. Also, DCNR can only accept bids greater than $3,500 per acre and must require a royalty payment of 16% of the market value of gas produced at each wellhead. Considering the minimum bid requirement, my legislation will raise at least $1.05 billion in funding for the repair weight restricted bridges over 3 fiscal years. |
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Introduced as HB1681