Anti-Drilling Policy Matters Ohio Says Severance Tax Still Too Low
In the wacky world of leftists, all money earned by private companies belongs to the state, and the state beneficently allows a company to keep some of that money to pay employees and shareholders. That’s the attitude of the far left, anti-drilling group Policy Matters Ohio (PMO), which doesn’t like the current oil and gas severance tax of 2.5% in Ohio. It’s not nearly high enough to fund leftist programs, according to PMO.
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Hart Energy’s DUG (Developing Unconventional Gas) East event was held this week in Pittsburgh, wrapping up this morning. Unfortunately, MDN could not attend the event this year. Some major news is coming from the event. One of the headline speakers from yesterday was CNX Resources CEO Nick DeIuliis who said he thinks it’s high time to seriously look at revising the now-ten-year-old impact fee that drillers pay (PA’s equivalent of a severance tax), a fee created as part of the Act 13 law. What would Nick change about the impact fee/tax?
Back in October Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, who is running for the Democrat nomination for governor in 2022, told trade union workers he didn’t like current Democrat Gov. Tom Wolf’s plan to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a huge tax on carbon dioxide assessed on coal and gas-fired power plants (see 
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), lapdog of leftwing Gov. Tom Wolf, tried to bypass the state legislature and secretly push through and get adopted a proposed regulation on the state joining the highly controversial Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a multi-state compact to limit carbon emissions from power plant operators (a carbon tax). The DEP just got caught red-handed.
West Virginia, the state legislature in particular, is up to its collective neck in a mess of its own making. The legislature passed House Bill (HB) 2581 on the last day of the annual WV legislative session in April. HB 2581 changes how the State Tax Department values producing oil and gas wells for property tax purposes (see 
Pennsylvania’s Independent Fiscal Office (IFO) provides revenue projections for use in the state budget process along with impartial and timely analysis of fiscal, economic, and budgetary issues to assist PA residents and the General Assembly in their evaluation of policy decisions. The IFO published its Monthly Economic Update yesterday (for October). The update contains good news for PA residents, all of whom benefit from the state’s Act 13 impact “fee” (i.e. tax) on Marcellus drilling. The IFO says the impact fee in 2022 (assessed on drilled and active wells as of 2021) will haul in an extra $74 million (to nearly a quarter of a billion dollars) thanks to the higher average price of the NYMEX futures index.
The American Exploration & Production Council (AXPC), which represents major oil and gas companies across the country, including many of the top producers in the Marcellus/Utica, is sounding the alarm that Joe Biden’s massive multi-trillion dollar reconciliation bill will destroy 90,000 jobs in the O&G industry and trim $9 billion out of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The Democrat Party aims to destroy fossil fuels and the $3.5 trillion (or $1 trillion or whatever it ends up being) so-called reconciliation bill is designed to do just that.
The leftist Democrats in Congress (and The White House) are not content to use a single barrel shotgun in its attempt to murder natural gas use in the U.S. They’ve brought out the double barrel shotgun. The federal government is proposing, under the Biden EPA, sweeping new methane emission regulations. The regulations are far worse than anything even in the Obamadroid era. That’s barrel number one. At the same time, the Dems intend to slap an insanely high new tax on methane in their so-called budget reconciliation bill. That’s the second barrel.
In April, on the last day of the West Virginia legislative session for 2021, the West Virginia Senate unanimously passed House Bill (HB) 2581 which changes how the State Tax Department values producing oil and gas wells for property tax purposes (see