Letters: Pa. lawmakers chose shale drilling over constituents

ISSUE | FRACKING

In 2012, the Pennsylvania legislature passed Act 13 to benefit the shale gas industry. Last week, the state Supreme Court decided the law is unconstitutional because it benefits specific groups or industries ("Fracking rules overturned," Thursday).

Note the benefits that were overturned; the law:

Limited spill notifications to public water suppliers and ignored private well owners;

Prevented doctors from getting information about chemicals used in drilling, which could harm their patients;

Allowed companies that sold, stored, or transported natural gas to seize subsurface property through eminent domain.

Lawmakers chose to pass legislation to benefit the shale gas industry and harm the health and property rights of their constituents, who pay their salary. Every legislator who voted to pass Act 13 should be voted out of office for advancing private interests and ignoring the public interest. The shale gas industry owns them.

|P. Boyle, Philadelphia