Windfall Profits Tax on Ohio Oil & Gas Discussed by Economists
Earlier this year, one of the biggest nutjobs in Congress, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (Democrat-RI), introduced an excise tax, which he erroneously called a windfall profits tax, targeted at oil company profits. The bill would impose a 50% tax on the difference between the current sale price of a barrel of oil and the average price of a barrel of oil from 2015 to 2019, which was roughly $66 per barrel. It would apply to sales by companies that produce or import at least 300,000 barrels of oil per day (or did so in 2019). Whitehouse later revised his plan to a proposed 21% windfall profits tax on oil company profits over 10%. Believe it or not, Ohio appears to be debating whether or not to apply such a windfall profits tax to its energy producers.
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U.S. Senator Joe Manchin, in an interview with the Associated Press, attempts to come off as the reasonable, middle-of-the-road, aw-shucks guy who sticks up for what he believes is right and the good of West Virginians. Don’t fall for it. He was pressured by the wackadoodle left in the Democrat Party, and he folded like a cheap suit. Manchin deserves to be voted out of office the instant that opportunity arises. We’re talking, of course, of Manchin’s betrayal of fossil energy through his support for one of the most destructive pieces of legislation that has passed since Joe Biden began to occupy the White House–the so-called Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), better known as the Green New Deal (aka Build Back Better). Manchin’s betrayal has profound consequences for fossil energy in this country.
The dirty deed is done. Dementia Joe signed the so-called Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) into law yesterday, and the country is harmed because of it. Tens of thousands of jobs will be lost. Businesses will close shop. It’s a pretty dystopian future we face thanks to a bill passed with absolutely no Republican votes. But face it we must. One of the first orders of business is to figure out how the new methane tax will work and to who it applies. Will LNG export facilities be subject to this incredibly harmful tax? Nobody knows. In fact, nobody knows how the tax will work, given certain loopholes baked into the bill at the last minute. The IRA is yet another exercise in total confusion by the Democrat left.
While some companies (ExxonMobil, Occidental Petroleum, Diversified Energy) have sold out in return for corporate favoritism in the Manchin-Schumer so-called Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which is really just a Big Green giveaway that slaps a huge new methane tax on oil and gas companies, there are some (many) bold and brave companies that are telling Manchin and those who have caved that the “Emperor has no clothes.” This bill is terrible. Among the groups pushing back are (surprisingly) the American Petroleum Institute (API). Also among the bold and the brave are the Pennsylvania Independent Oil & Gas Association (PIOGA) and the Ohio Oil & Gas Association (OOGA). In fact, 58 major oil and gas associations and groups representing thousands of companies sent a letter yesterday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy outlining their strong opposition to Manchin-Schumer.
Every single year Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf proposed a budget (all eight years of his ignominious occupation of the office), he insisted on raising taxes on the Marcellus industry by adding a high severance tax to an already-high impact tax. Every. Single. Year. In addition to an impact (i.e. severance) tax in PA, Marcellus drillers must pay an insanely high corporate net income tax (CNIT) of 9.99%. All businesses in the state are subject to the CNIT. Because of the high tax burden (the impact tax and the CNIT added together), many drillers have decided to expand elsewhere, like West Virginia, Ohio, and Louisiana. Now that he’s leaving office, Wolf has signed on to a reduction of the CNIT, claiming he never liked that nasty ole tax anyway.
Make no mistake: The Manchin-Schumer “Soar Inflation Higher” bill is bad for the country in EVERY way, including bad for the fossil energy industry via an industry-killing methane tax (see 
We have spit and sputtered daily since Traitor Joe Manchin announced his treachery last week–that he will sacrifice the entire country and its economic future in return for finishing one pipeline (see 
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf’s plan to force PA’s coal- and natural gas-fired power plants to begin paying an obscenely high tax on carbon dioxide emissions as part of the so-called Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) got blocked on July 1 by PA Commonwealth Court (see 
What’s fair is fair. If a county blocks drilling under county-owned land, as the Allegheny County Council recently did (see 
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf’s foolish plan to force PA’s coal- and natural gas-fired power plants to begin paying an obscenely high tax on carbon dioxide emissions as part of the so-called Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) got blocked on July 1 by PA Commonwealth Court (see 
We finally have some good news to share with respect to Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf’s foolish plan to force PA’s coal- and natural gas-fired power plants to begin paying an obscenely high tax on carbon dioxide emissions as part of the so-called Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). After exhausting various attempts to block it, Wolf published a final RGGI regulation in the Pennsylvania Bulletin in April (see 
Just yesterday MDN told you about this year’s distribution of last year’s (2021) impact fee revenue to local municipalities and to the black hole of Harrisburg politicians (see 
