(WHTM)-- Pennsylvania's natural gas industry has created jobs and lowered energy costs for people across Pennsylvania, but do they pay their fair share of taxes?

In an appropriations committee hearing, State Senator Art Haywood (D-Philadelphia) said drillers are ripping off Pennsylvania.

Haywood cited a commission report showing that Texas, the nation's number one natural gas producer, paid $12 billion in severance taxes to the state over a five-year period. Pennsylvania, the number two producer, only paid just over $1 billion in impact fees on gas wells.

Haywood's argument is that they're not paying their fair share.

"So Texas is producing about 11 million cubic feet of natural gas. Pennsylvania is producing about seven million. And so we're producing about two-thirds of what Texas is producing, but we're only getting $1 billion, and they're getting $12 billion," Haywood said.

Senator Kristin Philips (R-York) said the comparison isn't accurate.

"Texas has no corporate net income tax? None. So drillers in Texas don't pay that tax right now. That corporate net income tax is 7.99%. That's significant, and when you talk about municipal, county, and state taxes, they are much lower in Texas than they are here in Pennsylvania," she said.

"Senator Haywood shows his ignorance about tax structure of the various states," added Jim Welty, the President of the Marcellus Shale Coalition. "In Pennsylvania, we pay a corporate in income tax. We pay a personal income tax. And then on top of that, we pay the impact fee, so it's really unfair to compare the two without talking about the entire tax structure."

Haywood said he wants a severance tax, which is a tax on the amount of gas that comes out of the ground, rather than the current impact fee, which charges per well drilled, not the volume of gas it produces. Former Governor Tom Wolf ran on a severance tax 10 years ago and asked for it every year in his budget, but was ultimately unsuccessful.

"The natural gas industry has a lot of influence in the General Assembly and I think they're using that influence successfully to avoid the more fair taxation," said Haywood.

Rep. Phillips-Hill argues that companies don't pay severance taxes, customers do.

"Energy taxes are one of the most regressive types of taxes," said Phillips-Hill. "They hit poor people harder than they hit wealthy people."

If only we could harness the energy spent arguing energy at the Capitol.