PA IFO Predicts Impact Tax Revenue to Drop 38% in 2023

Pennsylvania assesses an impact fee (PA’s version of a severance tax) on shale drillers, raising revenues that are paid to local municipalities and to the black hole of Harrisburg politicians. Yesterday, the PA Independent Fiscal Office (IFO) issued an estimate for how much the impact tax will raise this year, to be distributed next year….

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Energy Groups Gear Up to Oppose Shapiro’s Appeal of Carbon Tax

Last Wednesday, before heading out the door for the Thanksgiving holiday, MDN brought you the sad (but not unsurprising) news that Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro had decided to appeal a Commonwealth Court decision striking down his predecessor’s attempt to force the state to implement a multi-billion-dollar carbon tax, called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (see…

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PA Gov. Shapiro Proves He’s Radical Left – Appeals RGGI Decision

We’ll say it right up front: We told you so. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro announced yesterday that he will appeal a decision by the Commonwealth Court that blocks PA’s entrance into the obscene Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) carbon tax scheme. Are you surprised? Shocked? We certainly aren’t. Shapiro has just revived a huge threat…

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Equinor Wins Refund of Gas Severance Tax Paid in WV for Two Years

Yesterday, the Intermediate Court of Appeals for West Virginia issued an opinion in a case that had (until now) escaped our radar. Equinor, Norway’s state-owned oil and gas company (previously known as Statoil), said it had overpaid its severance tax bill in West Virginia for the years 2014 and 2016. Equinor said WV miscalculated the…

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RGGI Carbon Tax Price Hits Near-Record-High of $13.85 Per Ton CO2

In 2019, when then-Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf announced he would unilaterally force the state to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a carbon tax scheme aimed at forcing coal- and gas-fired plants out of business, he claimed the tax would only amount to a few dollars per short ton of CO2 (see Gov. Wolf…

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U.S. Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Antero’s WV Well Tax Case

In a court case that stretches back to 2019, Antero Resources, the biggest driller in West Virginia, challenged how its wells had been valued for tax purposes in Doddridge and Richie counties for 2016 and 2017. Antero said the combined value of its wells for those years should have been $1.488 billion. The state tax…

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ARCH2 Hydrogen Hub Won’t Happen Without IRS 45V Tax Credit

With all of the good news about WV (and OH, and PA) winning the Biden Hydrogen Hub Hunger Games contest by scoring $925 million for the WV-led Appalachian Regional Clean Hydrogen Hub (ARCH2) (see today’s lead story), there is a potential black cloud on the horizon. Investments in ARCH2 might not actually come to pass…

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So-Called Evangelicals Claim 51K Christians Want Carbon Tax in PA

The left always twists language in its attempt to push its ideology and agenda — even in Christianity. The Pennsylvania-based Evangelical Environmental Network (EEN), during its 15-year history, has supported every far-left environmental regulation proposed by the Democrat Party and has criticized every conservative, Republican energy plan that allows for fossil energy to flourish in…

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Shapiro’s Strategy for RGGI Carbon Tax: Force OH & WV to Join Too

We remember (years ago) hearing Rush Limbaugh postulate this observation about liberals: “Liberalism is spreading misery equally.” Instead of cutting taxes, which boosts economic prosperity for everyone, including those at the bottom of the economic ladder, liberals seek to make more people pay more taxes. Spread the misery. Instead of allowing people to choose their…

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PA Gov Shapiro’s Secret Energy Group Endorses RGGI Carbon Tax

Newly-elected Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro appointed a working group in April to help guide him on what he should do concerning the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) carbon tax and the broader issue of global warming (see PA Gov Appoints Secretive Group to Work on Global Warming Plan). The panel was super-secret, with only a…

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Joe Manchin Promotes IRA in Recorded Speech to Shale Insight

In an administration full of destructive regulatory actions and legislation targeting fossil energy for extinction, the so-called Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) stands out as one of the worst. The IRA was made possible by a traitorous vote by West Virginia Democrat U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (see Tragedy: Joe Manchin Caves & Agrees to Big Green…

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RGGI Tax on Pennsylvanians Spiked Again in Huge Victory

RGGI Tax on Pennsylvanians Spiked Again in Huge Victory Jim Willis on NGL Pipelines Editor & Publisher, Marcellus Drilling News (MDN)   [Editor’s Note: Pennsylvanians have been spared again from the RGGI tax that Democrats want to impose on them for the sake of worthless but dangerous green virtue signaling.] Thanks to the good work of Pennsylvania’s

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PA Residents Saved from Carbon Tax 7th Time – Missed RGGI Auction

Thanks to the good work of Pennsylvania’s Senate Republicans, residents and ratepayers across the Commonwealth have been spared a spike in their electricity rates for a seventh time. The state just missed the latest so-called Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) “auction” that forces coal- and gas-fired power plants to pay obscenely high taxes to continue…

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Belmont County, OH Lodging Tax from O&G Workers Grows Tourism

The transient workers in the Ohio Utica Shale field must stay somewhere. That somewhere is typically a hotel or motel. Belmont County, one of the hotbeds of Utica drilling, has many such transient workers. Their overnight stays at area hotels and motels create a big pile of lodging tax revenue, which is used to help…

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With Carbon Credits Scam Exposed, Big Names (Like Shell) Exit Market

Last Friday, MDN told you about a new Cambridge University study published in the journal Science exposing the sale of carbon credits as a scam (see Cambridge Study Finds Carbon Offsets Using Trees is a Scam). Now that the carbon credit scam has been exposed, big companies like Shell, Nestle, and Gucci are exiting the…

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