Editor’s note: We are publishing a series of fact-checks of advertisements in the Pennsylvania 8th Congressional District race between incumbent Republican Congressman Rob Bresnahan of Dallas Twp. and Democratic challenger, Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti. The election is key for both major parties’ hopes of holding a House majority the next two years.

This 30-second ad was paid for by Rob For PA, Bresnahan’s official campaign, and was approved by the candidate.

A brief clip of a story aired by local TV outlet WNEP opens the ad, as then-anchor Sharla McBride says, “Residents are upset over the rain tax.” That leads into a clip from a meeting with a man leading a chant of “We want it gone!” and a sound bite from the station’s Talkback 16 feature from a caller who asks, “What is going on now? Taxing because it rains? Do you know how insane this sounds?”

Bresnahan, standing in front of a pond, says he gets those kinds of calls “all the time.”

Because of that, he announces, he took the debate over the so-called rain tax to “the D.C. swamp, and won,” as a graphic that reads “Ended the Rain Tax” flashes briefly on the screen.

A photo of Bresnahan smiling over the right shoulder of President Donald Trump appears as Bresnahan says, “We ended the federal rain tax mandate.” The voice of a veteran local TV news anchor, WBRE and WYOU’s Mark Hiller, is heard over a video of Bresnahan giving an interview, saying, “Congressman Rob Bresnahan has reversed the rain tax.”

Bresnahan closes the ad by insisting he will “always fight for Northeastern Pennsylvania and work to keep more money in your pocket.”

Key claim

Bresnahan says he and President Trump ended the federal rain tax mandate, with parallel claims that they “ended the rain tax.”

Is it factual?

The ad is misleading at best.

Trump indeed signed an executive order on Sept. 16 that revoked the Chesapeake Bay Protection and Restoration order signed in 2009 by then-President Barak Obama. So, Bresnahan’s claim that the federal rain tax mandate was ended is accurate.

What the ad left muddied is the reality that ending the mandate and ending the tax are two very different things.

Several claims in the ad, as well as an altered sound bite from Hiller, insisting those fees ended due to Trump’s order are false.

Pennsylvania law still requires municipalities to manage stormwater runoff and reduce pollution entering local streams and waterways. Changing that would require “additional action or direction from the appropriate state authorities,” Wyoming Valley Sanitary Authority CEO Andy Reilly told The Citizens Voice. Reilly added that the authority would continue to administer a regional program in which 35 municipalities near and along the Susquehanna River in Luzerne County participate.

WBRE and WYOU pointed out that the clip used from their 6 p.m. news broadcast on Sept. 16 was “altered to produce a different message than was originally reported.”

That broadcast opened with Hiller saying, “Congressman Rob Bresnahan says President Trump has reversed an Obama-era Chesapeake Bay directive tied to local stormwater requirements. Those requirements led to dozens of local communities charging stormwater fees, nicknamed the rain tax. Bresnahan says the federal change should provide relief, but exactly what it means for local customer bills is still unclear tonight.”

Hiller, in the altered clip aired in the ad, is heard saying, “Congressman Rob Bresnahan reversed the ‘rain tax.’”

On his Facebook account, Hiller wrote, “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.” A Bresnahan spokeswoman told the stations the clip was “shortened for brevity” for the ad; However, it changed the fundamental reporting of the story.