Rob Bresnahan has a new campaign ad, and it's about one of the most hated fees in Northeastern Pennsylvania: the stormwater charge that people call the "rain tax."
In the 30-second spot, paid for by his campaign and approved by him, Bresnahan says he took the fight "to the D.C. swamp, and won." Then a graphic flashes on the screen — "Ended the Rain Tax" — as he says, "We ended the federal rain tax mandate."
The local paper checked. On September 23, the Scranton Times-Tribune's ad watch called the ad "misleading at best." It said several claims in the ad — and a TV clip the campaign had edited — "insisting those fees ended due to Trump's order are false."
What actually happened
Here's the real story.
On September 16, President Trump signed an executive order revoking a 2009 Obama-era order on protecting and restoring the Chesapeake Bay. That's the federal piece Bresnahan is taking credit for, and the paper said that much is accurate: the federal mandate did end. What the ad muddies, it said, is that ending the mandate and ending the fee "are two very different things."
But the fees people pay in Luzerne County don't just come from a federal order. Pennsylvania state law still requires towns to manage stormwater runoff and cut pollution. Trump's order didn't change that law. Bresnahan can't change it either. He's a member of Congress, not the state legislature.
The people who actually run the program said so. Andy Reilly, the CEO of the Wyoming Valley Sanitary Authority, told The Citizens' Voice, the Times-Tribune's sister paper, that changing the program would take "additional action or direction from the appropriate state authorities." According to the Times-Tribune, 35 towns are still in the regional stormwater program.
Nothing in Trump's order ends the stormwater fees towns charge under state law. The "rain tax" the ad says he ended has not ended.
The anchor whose words got changed
The worst part of the ad isn't the claim. It's how the campaign tried to prove it.
The ad uses a clip of Mark Hiller, an anchor at local station WBRE/WYOU. Here's what Hiller actually said on air, according to the Times-Tribune:
"Congressman Rob Bresnahan says President Trump has reversed an Obama-era Chesapeake Bay directive tied to local stormwater requirements."
Notice the careful words. Bresnahan says. Trump reversed a directive. Nothing about the fee going away.
Here's what the ad makes him say:
"Congressman Rob Bresnahan reversed the 'rain tax.'"
That's a different sentence. The ad cut the anchor's words to make a local newsman vouch for a claim he never made.
Hiller noticed. He posted on Facebook:
"Let me just say that editing a soundbite to fit a narrative is something I do not do professionally and would never teach to any of my college students. Ethics matter."
The Times-Tribune's headline called the ad "ethically questionable."
A pattern of ads that don't hold up
This isn't the first time a Bresnahan ad has fallen apart when someone checked it.
His data center ad says "to Big Data, we're just land and dollar signs" — while his own financial disclosure shows up to $2 million in the companies that supply the data center industry. And after he sold off Medicaid-linked stocks and then voted to cut Medicaid, he started telling voters he'd fixed Congress.
The groups backing him have the same problem. A week after the rain tax ad watch, the Times-Tribune checked an ad from the Congressional Leadership Fund, a Republican super PAC, attacking his opponent, Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti. Its on-screen claim — "Higher Taxes Every Year" — was "false," the paper found: four of the six budgets in her time as mayor had no city tax increase.
Why it matters
The stormwater fee is a real cost for real families in the 8th District, and it's a fair fight to have. If Bresnahan wants to keep pushing to change it, voters can judge that.
But that's not what the ad says. It says the job is done. People who believe it are being told something the paper found false. And to sell the claim, his campaign took the words of a local journalist — someone viewers trust to tell them straight — and changed them.
What the paper found
Rob Bresnahan's campaign ad claims he "ended the rain tax." The Scranton Times-Tribune called the ad "misleading at best" and found claims in it false: Pennsylvania law still requires towns to manage stormwater, and the local authority says only state action could change the program. To support the claim, the ad edited a WBRE/WYOU anchor's report that Bresnahan "says President Trump has reversed" an Obama-era directive into "Congressman Rob Bresnahan reversed the 'rain tax'" — words the anchor never said.
