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PA Gov. Shapiro Proposes Own Version of Marcellus-Killing Carbon Tax

Some fairly big news broke last week just as MDN editor Jim Willis was taking a two-day break. So let’s get caught up. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro traveled to Scranton, PA, to announce a proposal to “immediately pull Pennsylvania out of a multi-state carbon cap-and-trade program” (the so-called Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI) and instead enroll PA in its very own RGGI-like carbon tax program. Same end result: It would kill Marcellus-fired power plants in the state, driving them to close and relocate to West Virginia and Ohio, states that don’t engage in the lunacy of taxing carbon emissions from power plants.
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WV Legislature Votes to Keep Flawed O&G Valuation Formula in Perpetuity

Members of the Wet Virginia State Senate voted on Friday to permanently retain a flawed oil and gas well valuation formula. The Senate vote comes after the House had previously voted to do the same thing (see WV’s Botched NatGas Property Tax Gets Messier with House Vote). The formula used has been the cause of unending confusion and problems in the state for two years (see WV NatGas Property Tax Rule Still a Mess, 303 Cases Appealed). Also, due to an error in calculating the confusing formula, shale counties in the state have lost out on millions in tax revenues (see NatGas WV Property Tax Mistake a Hot Mess – Counties Out Millions). Yet legislators, promising to “fix” the formula next year, voted to keep the current formula in place (that would have been sunsetted in 2025).
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PA DEP Wants RGGI Carbon Tax Forced on Everyone for Everything

Democrats will never be satisfied until they tax you for breathing and even existing, which was perfectly illustrated by a proposal submitted by the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) to its so-called Climate Change Advisory Committee on Tuesday. Not satisfied to try and force a Marcellus-killing carbon tax (called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI) on gas- and coal-fired power plants, the DEP now wants to grow RGGI or some facsimile thereof to “all sectors” of the PA economy. Are they TOTALLY INSANE? We have to say the answer to that rhetorical question is YES!
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WV’s Botched NatGas Property Tax Gets Messier with House Vote

Last summer, MDN told you that a new system to assess valuations of shale wells in West Virginia had turned into a royal mess (see WV NatGas Property Tax Rule Still a Mess, 303 Cases Appealed). In January, that mess got a whole lot messier — what we call a hot mess — when a “clerical error” by a third-party vendor in calculating the new formula for natural gas property tax valuations caused newly producing natural gas wells to be undervalued, leading to the loss of millions of dollars for the counties that see the most shale drilling (see NatGas WV Property Tax Mistake a Hot Mess – Counties Out Millions). Now, the legislature, in its wisdom, has voted to keep the flawed formula (that resulted in a clerical error) in place permanently.
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Global Carbon Credit Market is $909 Billion Dollar Scam

Last August, 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). After the carbon credit scam was exposed, big companies like Shell, Nestle, and Gucci exited the market — refusing to spend money on pretend solutions to global warming (see With Carbon Credits Scam Exposed, Big Names (Like Shell) Exit Market). How big of a scam is it? Try nearly $1 trillion a year!
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PA Sen. Yaw Intros Bill to Kill RGGI Carbon Tax Once and For All

Pennsylvania State Senator Gene Yaw recently announced the introduction of legislation to repeal the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) carbon tax enacted through an executive order by the Wolf Administration in 2019. RGGI, a multi-state compact, would increase electricity rates for PA consumers, cut energy and manufacturing jobs, and lead to the closure of Pennsylvania power plants. It would be an unmitigated disaster for the Marcellus industry. PA Republican Senators sued to block the measure and won in Commonwealth Court. Current Democrat Gov. Josh Shapiro then appealed the lawsuit to the PA Supreme Court, where it still sits (see PA Gov. Shapiro Proves He’s Radical Left – Appeals RGGI Decision). Yaw’s bill would make the Supreme Court case moot.
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WV Counties Want a Solution to Botched NatGas Property Tax, ASAP

Last week, MDN told you about a “clerical error” by a third-party vendor in calculating the new formula for natural gas property tax valuations in West Virginia that caused newly producing natural gas wells to be undervalued, leading to the loss of millions of dollars for the counties that see the most shale drilling (see NatGas WV Property Tax Mistake a Hot Mess – Counties Out Millions). Tyler County received nearly $16 million less than it was due. Counties already operate on thin budgets. This was a real blow. Those counties that got short-changed want to know what the state is going to do to compensate them for the lost revenue.
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NatGas WV Property Tax Mistake a Hot Mess – Counties Out Millions

Last summer, MDN told you that the new system to assess valuations of shale wells in West Virginia had turned into a mess (see WV NatGas Property Tax Rule Still a Mess, 303 Cases Appealed). That mess has just gotten messier — what we call a hot mess. A “clerical error” by a third-party vendor in calculating the new formula for natural gas property tax valuations caused newly producing natural gas wells to be undervalued, leading to the loss of millions of dollars for the counties that see the most shale drilling.
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PA PUC Publishes Fee Schedule for Marcellus Impact Fee/Tax 2023

In December, Pennsylvania’s Independent Fiscal Office (IFO), the agency charged with providing revenue projections along with impartial and objective analysis of fiscal, economic, and budgetary issues for the citizens and legislature of Pennsylvania, provided its best guess as to how much revenue the PA impact fee (i.e., severance tax) will generate from shale wells drilled or flowing in 2023 (see PA IFO Predicts Impact Tax Revenue to Drop 38% in 2023). The IFO bases its projections on the number of wells and the assessment for each well according to how many years it has been drilled. The agency that publishes the fees to be assessed for each well is the PA Public Utility Commission (PUC). The PUC published the official list of impact fee charges for 2023 in last Saturday’s PA Bulletin.
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Battleground State Energy Survey Shows Americans Reject Carbon Tax

The American Energy Alliance and the Committee to Unleash Prosperity recently sponsored a survey of 1,600 likely voters equally divided among eight “battleground” states (Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, Missouri, and Ohio) conducted by MWR Strategies in December 2023. The total sample margin of error is 2.45%. The survey results confirm that there has been little change in sentiment and attitudes on energy and climate change. Many of the responses in the survey are either consistent with or more emphatic than what they found in previous surveys.
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Full Attack Mode: Biden EPA Proposes New Punitive Methane Tax

The Bidenistas unveiled a new regulatory proposal targeting natural gas on Friday that would introduce an obscene new tax on the fossil fuel industry, punishing natgas producers that exceed a certain level of methane emissions. The Biden EPA, which took point on introducing the new federal methane tax, said it will help “tackle wasteful methane emissions” from the oil and gas sector, encouraging facilities with the highest emissions levels to meet or exceed higher levels of performance. The proposed rules would create a so-called Waste Emissions Charge, which begins at $900 per metric ton of wasteful emissions in 2024, and increases to $1,200 for 2025 and $1,500 for 2026 and beyond. Bonkers!
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Biden’s Proposed IRA 45V Tax Credit “Kneecaps” ARCH2 Hydrogen Hub

Well, you knew it was just too good to be true, right? When Santa Biden promised *billions* of dollars of “government” (i.e., your) money to prime the pump on establishing regional hydrogen hubs, with at least one of those hubs using natural gas as the primary feedstock to produce the hydrogen (which happened with the ARCH2 project in the Marcellus/Utica), it was too good to be true. And well, it was! The Bidenistas at the White House, Treasury Department, and Dept. of Energy proposed a new IRS rule last week that the 45V tax credits (part of Joe Manchin’s so-called Inflation Reduction Act) can only be used if the hydrogen produced is “green” — meaning NOT made from natural gas. In addition, the electricity used to produce the hydrogen can’t come from fossil fuel sources like natural gas (if you want the tax credit). Biden just kneecapped the ARCH2 hydrogen hub project.
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OH Gov. Signs Law for Utilities to Charge $1.50/Mo. for New Pipes

The left in Ohio is up in arms again. It’s always up in arms. Everything is a crisis. Everything is a climate tragedy. Everything is a conspiracy — so says the environmental left. Last Thursday, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed House Bill (HB) 201 into law. A provision was tacked onto HB 201 late in the legislative process, several weeks before it was passed, that allows natural gas utility companies to charge customers a piddly $1.50 per month ($18 per year) to help fund new pipelines that will get built in rural areas to industrial sites — areas without existing natgas pipes. The aim is to attract new businesses to locate in the Buckeye State. Many companies won’t consider a potential site without cheap, easy access to natural gas already installed. HB 201 helps make it much more likely a business will consider a site in Ohio, given access to cheap Utica Shale gas. Cue the enviro left’s shrill response.
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CNX Pulls Out of West Virginia Hydrogen Hub Ammonia Plant Project

Friday afternoon, CNX Resources issued a press release to announce it is officially pulling out of the previously announced multi-billion-dollar clean ammonia manufacturing facility in southern West Virginia, part of the ARCH2 (Appalachian Regional Clean Hydrogen Hub) project. Adams Fork Energy, Haldor Topsoe, and CNX announced the project in April with much fanfare (see CNX to Provide NatGas for WV Hydrogen Hub Clean Ammonia Plant). CNX was supposed to provide natural gas to the plant, tentatively scheduled to begin construction in 2024 in Mingo County, WV. CNX said it was pulling out for two reasons…
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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. The IFO says it thinks, based on the price of low natural gas and number of new and existing wells, that PA will generate $174.0 million from the impact tax in 2023, a decrease of $104.8 million (38%) from 2022. What the heck happened?
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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 PA Gov. Shapiro Proves He’s Radical Left – Appeals RGGI Decision). As we told you in that post, several Big Green groups immediately posted love letters of support. The case now goes to the PA Supreme Court, which is packed with leftist Democrats. However, the PA Senate, controlled by Republicans and a growing list of energy groups, will make the case before the Supremes that the RGGI carbon tax should be dead once and for all.
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