Pennsylvania Democratic gubernatorial aspirant Tom Wolf - Fracking will Finance Education
Pennsylvania Democratic gubernatorial aspirant Tom Wolf on Thursday paid a visit to the STEM Academy, which is located in Chester, to discuss with teachers and students about the quality and state of education in financially-constrained school districts.
Students requested Wolf to explain how he plans to assist the
cash-strapped Chester-Upland School District once he is elected
governor. He said that a 5 percent severance tax charged on Marcellus
Shale will address this.
“Five percent (tax) would raise a billion dollars,” Wolf said, according to CBS News. “Some of that would go back to the localities, some of that would go to the Department of Environmental Protection, some of that would be used to build a bridge to a sustainable energy future. But hundreds of millions of dollars of that new money would go to support public education.”
Wolf said elected officials are obligated to avail all the required resources to ensure students develop academically.
Elsewhere, nearly a dozen anti-fracking activists tried to make their opinion about fracking known to Gov. Andrew Cuomo in a big-money fundraiser that was also attended by local Democratic Party leaders on Wednesday. The event was organized by local developer Wayne LeChase.
However, the campaigners failed to get past the police and event stewards to access the $5,000-$20,000-a –ticket fundraiser as they weren’t on the guest list. The event was estimated to have grossed almost $20,000 for financing Cuomo’s re-election campaign in November.
