Among the items on state lawmakers’ agenda in 2012 is shale gas legislation. The last legislative session ended without action, despite plenty of promises over a year or more. The top issues include setting a reasonable extraction tax or impact fee that’s competitive with other states’ fees, and improving environmental protections to reflect the realities of hydraulic fracturing. The other issue is whether state standards should trump local rules set by different municipalities for gas drilling.

When lawmakers get back to shale-gas legislation, voters and taxpayers should pay attention.

Given the looming state budget deficit, the first priority should be to enact a reasonable gas extraction tax or impact fee to help state revenues.

Various reports from Harrisburg say there are efforts to work out a compromise between two bills addressing shale gas, a House bill and a Senate bill.

Normally, compromise is a good idea, but in this case both existing proposals are inadequate. So, settling on a fee between the two current proposals is not the best solution.

The problem for taxpayers is that both bills fall short when it comes to generating revenue from shale-gas extraction. The House bill proposes the lower impact fee of the two, but even the Senate bill’s higher impact fee would leave too much money on the table — leaving the impression that lawmakers are putting a big ribbon on a multimillion-dollar gift to gas drillers, given that the House bill sets a fee at one-fifth the level of what drillers pay in Texas.

The gas industry has said that it expects to pay an extraction tax or impact fee in Pennsylvania, just like it does in other states. Drillers say they expect the fee to be reasonable. Behind the scenes, the industry is working to keep the tax or fee as low as possible, just as any industry group would be doing.

Supporters of the low fees in the two bills say that the lack of a personal income tax or corporate income tax in Texas explains the difference. The Commonwealth Foundation, a conservative public policy group, says that Pennsylvania has the 10th-highest tax burden in the United States and a low impact fee is necessary to compensate and keep gas-drilling activity alive in Pennsylvania.

But unless state lawmakers pass a tax or fee higher than neighboring states’, the gas industry will remain in this state to exploit both the Marcellus and Utica Shale formations.

If the overall tax climate of other gas-producing states is the reason Harrisburg Republicans propose such low impact fees, then lawmakers should make that case to the public. Lawmakers should lay out the facts and try to dispel the impression that they are leaving millions of dollars on the table to fatten the profits of gas drillers at a time when the state is cutting back spending in education and other important areas.

Suspicions over the appearance of a lucrative giveaway to the gas industry are not helped by the fact that Gov. Tom Corbett received at least $800,000 in donations from gas interests, and the industry has been generous when it comes to spreading around campaign contributions to lawmakers, in Pennsylvania and across the country.

The environmental advocacy group PennFuture (Citizens for Pennsylvania’s Future) suggested in a statement this week that lawmakers should scrap the two bills and start over. It also suggests that the different issues be addressed in separate bills to reduce complexity and improve the chances for something actually passing Pennsylvania’s mostly dysfunctional Legislature.

Both ideas are reasonable and worth consideration.

Whatever lawmakers decide to do, the public should watch carefully. There is much at stake in terms of the budget, the environment and finding a balance between economic growth and protecting human health and the state’s natural resources.