PA Dem Seeks Severance Tax Break for 2 P&G Wells in His District
One of the unsung hero stories we’ve told a few times on MDN is about the only Proctor & Gamble manufacturing plant in the world that is 100% energy self-sufficient. It’s located in Wyoming County, PA (see PA P&G Plant: 100% Energy Self-Sufficient from Marcellus Gas and P&G Plant in NEPA Adds Marcellus CNG Filling Station). The reason the P&G plant is energy self-sufficient and in fact the reason it sells energy back to the local power utility is because it drilled and operates two Marcellus Shale wells on company property. The gas from those wells feeds an electric generating plant that produces more electricity than P&G can use at the plant. It’s a very cool story. But now, here comes Democrat Gov. Tom Wolf who wants to tax the shale gas industry into oblivion. The severance tax he’s proposing would apply to the two wells on P&G’s property–even though they don’t sell the gas for a profit. So local PA Rep. Mike Carroll, a Democrat from Avoca (who supports Wolf’s tax and spend policies), is trying to carve out an exception for the two P&G shale wells because…well because P&G is in his district employing lots of Carroll’s voters and no doubt a big contributor to his campaign coffers, either directly or via the salaries P&G pays to people who work at the plant and contribute to Carroll…
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It’s always a sad day when we report a death related to the Marcellus/Utica industry. Thankfully it doesn’t happen often, but the fact it happens at all is almost too much to bear. We know it’s not realistic to expect no fatalities, but still… On Monday afternoon around 2:30 pm a worker at the former Marcus Hook refinery–which is being converted into a natural gas liquids terminal–was killed after a pylon fell on him. The worker’s name has not yet been released, but it is reported he was in his 50s and from New Jersey and worked for engineering firm AECOM, a contractor working at the site. In a profoundly inappropriate manner, a member of the anti-drilling group Protecting Our Waters jumped on the death as an opportunity to push her anti-drilling message…
We understand it’s a really big commitment to decide to spend $2 billion or more on a single project, like the Shell ethane cracker plant announced in June 2011 that may (or may not) be coming to the Marcellus (see