Pennsylvania has a workforce problem - a growing skills gap that is making it difficult for employers to find qualified job candidates to fill open positions. We're fighting to close this gap by working with businesses, educators, students and their families to help build the skilled workforce of tomorrow.
Government should operate within its means: evaluating the effectiveness of current programs; weeding out waste, fraud and abuse in spending; and investing wisely in worthy state-run programs that directly benefit taxpayers.
Our natural gas industry holds the promise of economic growth and job creation. Additional taxes hinder this opportunity and drive companies to states with friendlier tax climates that share our resources. We're fighting against proposed new taxes on the industry that would pay for more state spending.
Business and civic leaders, some from Indiana County, offered a rebuttal Thursday to Gov. Tom Wolf's plan to use what he calls "a commonsense severance tax" on natural gas to finance a $4.5 billion, 20-year "Restore Pennsylvania" bond issue.
The Pennsylvania Senate should be applauded for its decision to confirm Secretary Patrick McDonnell for another term at the helm of the Department of Environmental Protection, and Gov. Tom Wolf deserves credit for keeping a steady hand at the wheel of this important agency.
Total natural gas production in Pennsylvania grew by 14.7% in the first quarter of 2019 compared to the same period last year, a report by the Pennsylvania Independent Fiscal Office said.
Republicans who control Pennsylvania's Senate are preparing an alternative to Gov. Tom Wolf's proposal for a multibillion-dollar capital plan, funding it by allowing more natural gas drilling in state-owned forests rather than by taxing natural gas production.
A state agency projects that natural gas impact fee collections for 2018 will exceed those from 2017 by $37.4 million.
Pennsylvania's impact fee on shale gas wells is expected to raise a record $247 million this year, driven in part by the anticipated receipt of millions of dollars in past fees that the state plans to collect after winning a state Supreme Court case last month.
Impact fees on unconventional natural gas operations in Pennsylvania hit a single-year high in 2018, according to the state's Independent Fiscal Office.
The fee Pennsylvania collects from natural gas drillers is expected to reach a record $247 million this year, according to figures released Thursday by the state's Independent Fiscal Office.
Say this for Gov. Tom Wolf.
Eleven weary months later, Gov. Tom Wolf is about to deliver a second budget proposal that he says will narrowly focus on boosting school funding while raising taxes to pay for automatic cost increases.
It's rare for a tax to be done away with entirely, but, once in a while, it happens.
A Pennsylvania business tax that predated the Civil War and in modern times pumped hundreds of millions of dollars a year into state coffers has been swept away with the new year.