Riots erupted today across the inner island areas of Philadelphia as the Emergency Comptroller Council unanimously passed a tax on energy drawn from government owned fusion drives.

Some 800,000 people marched from the residential monoliths up to the capital district where crowds grew violent and attempted to breach the Emergency Administrative Force’s Green Zone. Clashes with Independent Militia Reserve groups left hundreds wounded and at least 25 dead before drones with sonic debilitators could disperse the crowd. This was the third largest protest in Philadelphia since the Emergency Comptroller Council took power in February, and the fifth to be subdued by drones on loan to Pennsylvania from the Independent Virginias.

The megacity has been in turmoil since the Fifth Percentile banking crisis wiped out the state’s budget surplus three years ago and dropped the value of its bonds to junk status. Marcos Medino’s popular People’s Party was deemed criminally responsible for not preventing the disaster and dissolved from power. Private investment firm Flash (owned by His Excellence Sheikh Hamdan Bin Tahnoun Bin Sultan Al Nahyan) stepped in the save the state, buying up 86% of Pennsylvania assets and debt and establishing the Emergency Comptroller Council to nurse the state back to financial health.

The public mandate statement on the ECC’s website reads “Responsible Pennsylvanians understand our state is in a bad place right now and it is every patriotic citizen’s duty to step up to the plate and help pay for the debts incurred by our former government. It is essential that we re-establish the trust of the financial markets if we want to rebuild the value of our bonds and granting a 100 year license of the state’s fusion energy to BPMobil is a productive start.”

Since the perfection of low-energy nuclear reactions by Saxon Musk during the 2050s, mankind has enjoyed an effectively limitless supply of free and clean energy. Over the next century it became a cornerstone of former United America policy that all Americans be granted equal access to unlimited fusion energy, and many United states across the country still have articles in their constitution listing free power as part of a citizen’s inalienable rights.

“What Flash is doing is returning America to the days when resources were controlled by the powerful to extract as much wealth from the working class as possible,” said Anesh Dwalla, street activist and former People’s Party representative. “Putting a meter on people’s energy use stops many from being able to access accelerated travel, or replicate enough matter for food and other basic household needs. If there is no change in the pricing adopted today by the Emergency Comptroller Council, many of the state’s most vulnerable will not even be able to afford to power up their climate shields when the first winter humidity freezes begin in four months.”

Flash Vice President of the Americas Brad Rendall dismissed criticism of the plan as populist rhetoric from people unwilling to face the grim financial realities of the current situation.

“Flash is the only group that was willing to step in and vouch for Pennsylvania’s depleted bond value. So to accuse it of being ‘a vampire squid attaching itself to citizens of the state’ is a rich irony. Flash is spending tens of thousands of BitIS on law enforcement alone to keep the outer islands of Philadelphia from descending into anarchy. The unrest we’re seeing does nothing to help the situation and only increases the likelihood of a final default and full constitutional reset.”

“But with this tax program and other recommendations from the ECC, we may do well enough to lift the moratorium on public elections within a decade and return some municipal control of the region back to the registered citizens of Pennsylvania, as the founding fathers of the New Independent States of America so rightly intended.”

The 116 year old Mr. Dwalla, a former Philadelphia mayor and one of the signatories on Pennsylvania’s Independent Statehood Declaration, had a different view of the subject. “What is happening in Pennsylvania is an affront to the ideals of the Independent States and I encourage all interested parties to converge on Philadelphia to show international business cartels they cannot overthrow the government and extort the citizenry for private financial gain.”

Shortly after similar statements at a rally in Richmond, Mr. Dwalla was arrested alongside 47 others on charges of Inciting Organized Violence Across Independent State Borders. According to authorities, over five hundred illegal pulse disruptor charges and a 100,000 watt signal jammer were recovered during the raid. Mr. Dwalla’s lawyer denies his client has any connection to the seized weapons and criticized the Independent Virginias for applying a law to legally assembling citizens that was designed to stop warfare between Independent states.

This is not the first time an Independent state has instituted a tax on fusion power. The Alaskan Independence Party passed a similar measure in 2196 in an attempt to fund a system of levies to salvage the southern coastal area of the state. The tax was abolished in 2203 along with the state when Alaska sunk below the 5 meter water mark and was ceded as per the Coastal Augmentation Accord to salvage conglomerates. And before Musk’s fusion drives freed the nation from limited power resources, a majority of citizens spent more than half of their earnings on energy consumption related to food generation, transportation, and heating.

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