Our Philadelphia

The natural gas industry gave $2.85 million to political candidates in Pennsylvania between 2001 and March 2010, and it spent $4.2 million on lobbying since Pennsylvania began requiring lobbyist reporting in 2007. Spending in both categories has spiked since 2008 as new drilling techniques have enabled the industry to more fully exploit the Marcellus Shale (See chart on p.5). This spike also comes as the industry is seeking to defeat a proposed severance tax on natural gas extraction, defeat a moratorium on drilling in state-owned lands, defeat or delay tougher environmental regulations, and keep information about exactly what mixtures of chemicals are used in natural gas extraction secret. With enough natural gas to fuel domestic demand for at least 10 years—and a current market value estimated at more than $1 trillion—the Marcellus Shale has enabled the industry to promise a modern-day Gold Rush for the state.

This study tracks the extent of the industry’s giving to elected officials and its success in rapidly expanding operations in the state before the potential for environmental damage from drilling has been fully studied. Pennsylvania and New York are the only major natural gas producing state that does not tax the extraction of this finite natural resource. Revenues from the severance taxes levied in other states are used to fund environmental protection, infrastructure repair, and proper regulation of drilling. On the lack of a severance tax in Pennsylvania, Department of Conservation and Natural Resources Secretary John Quigley recently said, “Quite frankly, the citizens of this state are being played for chumps.” Or as a spokesman for Chesapeake Energy, which has 519 well permits in Pennsylvania, told a reporter in 2009, “We gladly pay a severance tax in every state where we’re active, except in New York and Pennsylvania.”

Think of the scaffolding that has moved around the walls of City Hall in recent years as the building was cleaned. Every part of the exterior was cleaned, not just the face you see from the Convention Center, or the face that tourists see from the steps of the Art Museum. This is what we need to do government itself. Philadelphia must do more to clean up its act, cast a bright light on the inner workings of city government, and make the reforms promised by Michael Nutter and other elected officials a reality.

In December, an Ethics Task Force created by the Mayor made a number of recommendations that would help hold city officials to higher ethical standards, and empower ordinary citizens to expose the role that campaign contributions and corporate lobbying playing in shaping public policy. Troublingly, no member of City Council came to the press conference at which the Task Force issued its report, and Philadelphia's "reform election" of 2007 is starting to seem like a long time ago. "Hurry Down Sunshine" explains why cleaning up our city's culture of corruption can wait no longer.

Pennsylvania is one of the few states that does not limit campaign contributions. In April of this year, the state supreme court overturned a ban on contributions from donors with a financial stake in a casino, so that gaming interests can give as much as they want to elected officials as they lobby to further expand legalized gambling. The study includes a list of the Top 20 Donors in the gaming industry, and Top 20 Recipients of gaming contributions from 2001-08. Among the top three donors are Louis DeNaples, whose casino license was temporarily revoked after the Dauphin County Attorney’s Office questioned whether he had lied about his ties to organized crime, and Peter DePaul, who brought the lawsuit that voided Pennsylvania’s ban on gaming contributions.