How the Inflation Reduction Act’s Onerous New Methane Tax Works
After the shocking news that U.S. Senator Joe Manchin had sold out his state and the entire country by agreeing to support the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) bill, the details began to come out about just how bad this bill really is for the oil and gas industry. First and foremost, it slaps a new tax on oil and gas activities (see Joe Manchin’s Green New Deal Cave Slaps O&G with Big Methane Tax). We’ve shared a couple of articles touching on how this onerous and harmful new tax will work (see Confusion Over How to Implement New Methane Tax in Inflation Bill and A Closer Look at New Manchin Methane Tax – Part of IRA). We have a much better, deeper, more comprehensive explanation of the new tax from RBN Energy.
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We’ll say it right up front: We told you so. From the beginning, when U.S. Senator Joe Manchin announced he had sold out the country and would vote in favor of the horrible (misnamed) Inflation Reduction Act in return for a promise from Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi to pass a “permitting reform” bill that guarantees to finish the stalled (95% complete) Mountain Valley Pipeline, we told you it was a bad deal (see 
In a clear sign the Democrat Party is desperate with a national election (national referendum on Biden) just 44 days away, our beneficent Dictator in Chief, Joe Biden, has demanded that companies running gas stations, “Bring down the prices you’re charging at the pump to reflect the cost you pay for the product. Do it now. Do it now. Not a month from now — do it now.” He sounded like a raging lunatic when he said it. High prices at the pump are the result of Biden’s own socialist, very misguided policies. Yet he attempts to scapegoat and blame it on the thousands of individual companies that vend gasoline in a free-and-open market.
Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm attended a gathering of leftist nutballs (she was in good company) in Pittsburgh on Friday at the so-called Global Clean Energy Action Forum to announce the Dept. of Energy (DOE) has finally gotten off its rear-end and has officially opened the application process for states and regions and even private entities to lobby her in an attempt to attract a regional hydrogen hub. The Biden infrastructure bill, signed into law last November, was originally said to be funding $8 billion for “four” regional hydrogen hubs, with each hub getting roughly $2 billion (see 
Republicans in the Pennsylvania Senate have, since April 2021, refused to appoint new members to the five-member Public Utility Commission in response to Democrat Gov. Tom Wolf’s unilateral push to force the state to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) carbon tax scheme (see 
U.S. Senator Joe Manchin, from West Virginia, made a stop at the Global Clean Energy Action Forum (a confab of global warming wackos) on Friday to make a pitch for support of his “save Mountain Valley Pipeline” bill without actually mentioning MVP. At the start of his talk, Manchin was heckled by four wackadoodle protesters who were escorted out by security. Manchin then talked about his bill and how it will streamline the process for renewable energy projects. No mention of fossil fuel projects. Love the one you’re with, right?
The term “woke” is thrown around a lot these days. The left introduces race and alleged racism wherever it can as a bludgeon to justify stripping away more of your Constitutional freedoms. Woke means everything and everyone is racist. The Biden Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has just launched a new “Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights” (“woke office”) that will try to paint any new pipeline, any new compressor station, any new fossil energy infrastructure project of any kind as racist and therefore should not get built.
Yesterday evening, U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (from West Virginia) finally released a draft bill that purportedly streamlines the permitting process for oil and gas pipelines, among other things. The bill, called the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2022, also clears away the remaining roadblocks to complete the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline that travels through WV and into Virginia. MVP is 94% done and in the ground, yet anti-fossil fuel wackos keep blocking its completion with frivolous lawsuits and colluding federal judges. Manchin wants to blast through it and get it done, to his credit.
It appears that Sen. Joe Manchin’s “save MVP bill” (otherwise known as the permitting reform bill) is crashing and burning. No official language or text of the bill has been released. Yet. Why is that? Manchin extracted a promise from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that a bill to finish up Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) and streamline permitting for future pipeline projects would be brought to a vote and passed–IF old Joe voted in favor of the horrible Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), a bill (now law) that damages the fossil fuel industry. Joe got rolled. He voted to pass the IRA, and now more than one-third of House Democrats and at least one Senate Democrat (crazy Bernie Sanders) have pledged to vote against Manchin’s bill, leaving him high and dry with nothing to show for his sellout on IRA. So Manchin turned to Republicans to save his tattered reputation–and they aren’t having it. Republicans refuse to reward Manchin’s sellout. Manchin calls it “revenge politics.” We call it eating the excrement sandwich you prepared for yourself, Joe.
Never believe that the government can do anything quickly–except destroy an economy. Nearly a year ago, President Biden signed into law the so-called Infrastructure bill, some $1.2 trillion in pork barrel spending, passed with the help of turncoat Republicans (see 
While mainstream media is trying to convince you that the Democrats have a real chance of holding onto the House and Senate in the November election, don’t believe it. It’s not true. What you can expect to see and hear in news reports in the coming weeks are stories about “what if” the Republicans do win back majorities in both chambers–because they can’t afford to be so obviously wrong when there’s a Republican landslide. Expect to see stories asking, What will happen next? What about how a Republican sweep impacts the recently passed (misnamed) Infrastructure Reduction Act? And how does Republican control impact the so-called Infrastructure bill passed last year? S&P Global tackles those questions, saying Republicans have options to slow down, counter, and mute those idiotic bills. We pray to God it happens.
In June, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz spoke to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about Germany buying LNG from Canada (see 
