A new commercial is airing in recent days. An apparent prelude to Gov. Tom Wolf’s re-election campaign, it highlights Wolf’s ongoing effort to impose a severance tax on Marcellus Shale gas wells.

A first term Democrat saddled with Republican majorities in the House and Senate, Wolf has few political victories to tout in his bid for a second term. But he has plenty to complain about, since the GOP legislature’s lack of accomplishment rivals his own. The governor is astute to stress that there’s plenty of blame to go around for an atmosphere of discord and disarray, as exemplified in a fiscal year entering its sixth month without a budget.

The on-again, off-again severance tax proposal is just one target of the finger pointing — but it’s a big target.

Wolf says Pennsylvania needs to tax the gas as it leaves the ground to plug a $2.4 billion gap in the $32 billion state budget.

“We know the people fighting against the severance tax have worked behind closed doors to shut down a vote,” Wolf says in the video clip, “because they would rather see me fail than Pennsylvania succeed.”

State Rep. Greg Vitali shares the governor’s preoccupation with the opposition’s motives. A Democrat from Delaware County, Vitali said the severance tax debate is unduly influenced by the natural gas industry, with more than 200 lobbyists registered in Harrisburg. The industryhas spent $3.7 million this year on lobbying just in the Capitol andanother $7.7 million on campaign contributions since 2007, according to data from campaign finance reports, lobbying disclosure reports, lobbying registration statements and lawmakers’ statements of financial interests.

Wolf’s plan to pull $200 million in cash reserves from a medical malpractice insurance fund collapsed under a legal challenge. Vitali says House Republicans now have another offer on the table — they’re willing to allow a 1 percent severance tax in exchange for legislation altering the way the state permits and regulates gas wells. He says the changes would harm the Department of Environmental Protection’s ability to regulate the industry.

The entire trail of a 1 percent tax seems petty, especially when tied to the regulatory changes.

The Marcellus industry is building massive petrochemical processing plant in Beaver County. The polyethylene cracker plant will create raw materials, the sale of which will be taxed. The products made from these materials will be taxed, as will the incomes of the people making, transporting, marketing and selling them. The incomes of the employees at the cracker plant will be taxed. So will the homes they live in and the cars and other goods they buy.

Advocates for the gas drillers, including the locally based Marcellus Shale Coalition, have stressed the concept that a severance tax might push the entire industry out of Pennsylvania. That may or may not be true, but this much is fact: there is only one ethane cracker plant being built north of the Mason-Dixon Line, and it’s being built in Pennsylvania.