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Letters: Gas extraction tax for Pennsylvania is the least we can do

THE FOSSIL-fuel industry always promises to bring jobs and prosperity, but the promise always proves false. For 150 years, coal has been extracted from West Virginia, yet West Virginia is 48th in the nation in terms of per-capita income. The state is in effect a sort of Third World nation, the coal being exported for use elsewhere while the state receives little in return beyond environmental devastation.

THE FOSSIL-fuel industry always promises to bring jobs and prosperity, but the promise always proves false. For 150 years, coal has been extracted from West Virginia, yet West Virginia is 48th in the nation in terms of per-capita income. The state is in effect a sort of Third World nation, the coal being exported for use elsewhere while the state receives little in return beyond environmental devastation.

Pennsylvania is about to follow the same route with Marcellus shale natural gas. The only beneficiaries will be the minority of those who own most of the mineral rights, so we might as well get at least some benefit by taxing the extraction process.

Jim Hunter, Philadelphia