Taxation

Economic Impact | Energy Services | Energy Transfer Partners | Industrywide Issues | Jobs | Ohio | Pipelines | Statewide OH | Taxation

Property Tax Revenue/Economic Impact from ET Rover Pipeline in OH
December 4, 2014December 4, 2014

Seems like “all of a sudden” large pipeline projects planned for the northeast have begun talking about how much property taxes (and economic impacts) their projects will pay out. Yesterday it was the 550-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline project from Dominion (see Atlantic Coast Pipeline: $25M/Yr in Prop. Tax, $70M/Yr Econ Impact). Today? Energy Transfer Partners’ Rover pipeline, a 620-mile pipeline that will carry Marcellus and Utica Shale gas west, through Ohio into Michigan and on to Ontario, Canada (see Big News: ETP “Rover” Marcellus/Utica Pipeline to Midwest/Canada). How much of an economic impact and how much in property tax will it pay out? We have some numbers…
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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Industrywide Issues | Taxation

Green Scissors Proposes New Energy Taxes Under Guise of Spending Cuts
November 19, 2014November 19, 2014

A completely bogus anti-drilling campaign calling itself “Green Scissors” attempts to pass off the latest anti-fossil fuel efforts by Friends of the Earth and two other unheard of, far left groups (Taxpayers for Common Sense and R Street) as cutting wasteful government spending. It is NOTHING of the sort. Their so-called interactive database identifies “more than $259 billion in environmentally-harmful government waste” that they hope Republicans in Congress will adopt. What it really is, is their recommendations for eliminating tax deductions that encourage energy companies to drill for oil and gas. Deductions like instead of the ability to write off an expense up front, in the year when the expense occurs–Green Scissors wants to force energy companies to amortize and depreciate the expense over the life of the asset (decades). In other words, raise taxes on energy companies. In the minds of Green Scissors–ALL MONEY belongs to the government and the government allows you to keep some of it–rather than the other way around…
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Industrywide Issues | McKean County | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA | Taxation

PA Severance Tax Will End Worthy Projects in Drilling Communities
November 19, 2014November 19, 2014

The McKean County, PA Board of Commissioners have just approved spending $42,750 to convert space over the Goodwill store in Kane, PA into four one-bedroom apartments to be used to house “transition age youth”–poor kids with no place to live. The money comes from a housing fund established by (yep) the Marcellus Shale impact fee. If PA’s Republican legislature caves and adopts newly-elected Gov. Tom Wolf’s nutball idea of a 5% severance tax, the impact fee will be gone and projects like this will disappear along with it. Which is why communities impacted by Marcellus drilling are universally opposed to changing from an impact fee to a severance tax–because they will get shafted. Right now, 60% of the fee stays local, for projects like this one. With a severance tax, all money goes to Harrisburg and slips through the fingers of greedy politicians–into the back pocket of teacher’s unions, mostly…
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Centre County | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Shell | Statewide PA | Taxation

New PA Senate Leader Says Severance Tax Could Kill Cracker Plant
November 17, 2014November 17, 2014

It’s looking better and better that Pennsylvania Republicans will not cave to pressure to enact a Marcellus-killing severance tax proposed by Democrat Governor-elect Tom Wolf. Last week Republicans booted RINO Dominic Pileggi (Philly area) from his leadership post and replaced him with Sen. Jake Corman from Centre County as the new majority leader. Corman says if a severance tax is enacted, it may well kill the prospects for Shell’s ethane cracker plant and Corman wants to ensure that plant gets built…
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Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | PennEast Pipeline | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Statewide PA | Taxation

PA State Law Prevents PennEast Pipeline from Paying Property Tax
November 17, 2014November 17, 2014

If you live in New Jersey and you live in a county or township where the PennEast Pipeline will be built, you’re in for a treat: You get a shot of extra revenue every year for the town/county budget in the form of real estate taxes (often referred to as property taxes). PennEast figures Hunterdon County, NJ will see something like $1 million per year in tax revenue from the pipeline. But just over the border in Pennsylvania it’s a different story. In PA natural gas pipelines are not considered “real estate” but instead equipment, and therefore pipelines are not taxed…
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Blair County | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA | Taxation

Altoona Politicos Say 5% Severance Tax a Marcellus “Killer”
November 14, 2014November 14, 2014

State Sen. John H. Eichelberger Jr., a Republican from Blair County (Altoona area) in Pennsylvania, had some tough words for incoming Democrat Gov. Tom Wolf: Forget about a 5% severance tax on the Marcellus industry. Eichelberger figures such a tax, while sounding “small” actually represents the snatch and grab of 50% of the profit companies now make in the state–and if you take away half of the profits they earn, most of them will stop drilling and leave. Hello! Anybody home at Democrat HQ? Anybody home at REPUBLICAN HQ? Are you listening?? Eichelberger is exactly right…
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Industrywide Issues | New York | Ohio | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Statewide NY | Statewide OH | Statewide PA | Statewide WV | Taxation | West Virginia

Big Election Night for Republicans & Pro-Gas Candidates
November 5, 2014November 5, 2014

Yesterday’s election was, by all accounts, historic. It was a complete and utter repudiation of Barack H. Obama and his aggressive socialist policies–there’s no denying that. Republicans picked up governorships in most states where they ran. The one cloud was, unfortunately, Pennsylvania where California environmentalist wacko Tom Steyer’s $10 million+ purchased the governorship for the hapless Democrat Tom Wolf. One bright spot in PA (we challenge you to find this news in your local newspaper today) is that Republicans picked up MORE seats in both the PA House and Senate. Which means unless Republicans cave, there will be no severance tax to shut down Marcellus drilling in the Keystone State–at least for the next few years. Whew. In New York, Republicans (beyond all belief) held on and improved their majority in the Senate. The NY Senate is the only firewall against legislative action to permanently stop fracking in the Empire State. Whew. And what’s this, New England moves Republican???…
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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Statewide PA | Taxation

Dela. Riverkeeper Hopes New PA Gov Will Stop Marcellus Drilling
November 5, 2014November 5, 2014

StateImpact Pennsylvania, an online publication populated with lefty advocates who call themselves “reporters” from Pennsylvania’s PBS stations, interviewed a variety of people from both industry and those opposed to drilling in compiling a story on what Tom Wolf’s win as the new Democrat governor of PA will mean for the drilling industry. Of particular interest to MDN are the (many) words in the article attributed to THE Delaware Riverkeeper, the arrogant Maya van Rossum. Among her (many) words is her desire/hope that Wolf will implement a moratorium on all new Marcellus Shale drilling in the state…
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Chautauqua County | Economic Impact | EmKey Gathering | Energy Companies | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | New York | Norse Energy | Pipelines | Taxation

Cuomo Dithers and Towns Like Gerry, NY Pay the Bill
November 3, 2014November 3, 2014

Not only has NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s dithering and refusal to make a decision on whether or not to allow horizontal hydraulic fracturing in the state materially harmed tens of thousands of landowners and farmers in the state (not to mention all of those who would have had high-paying jobs in the industry), it’s also harmed taxpayers in places like Gerry (Chautauqua County), NY. Because Cuomo dithered and Norse Energy went bankrupt, a division of Norse, Norse Pipeline, also went bankrupt because the gas wasn’t available to run through their pipeline in places like Gerry. That pipeline was sold to Emkey and a court has just re-adjusted the assessment of that pipeline’s value–from $2,616,444 to $320,439, causing Gerry to lose $2,305,368 of its tax base. Not only that…
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Elk County | Industrywide Issues | Jefferson County (PA) | Mercer County | Pennsylvania | Potter County | Taxation | Tioga County (PA)

PA Republican Senator Hands Out $2M+ in Impact Fee Money
October 22, 2014October 22, 2014

Being President Pro Tempore of the Pennsylvania State Senate has its privileges–like handing out $2,086,132 in grants for six energy, trail and water and sewer projects in your district–just two weeks before the election. Senator Joe Scarnati (R-Jefferson) announced awards yesterday to fund projects including $150K for a recreation trail in Elk County, nearly half a mil for a flood mitigation project in Senator’s home county of Jefferson, and $546K to buy some sort of biogas contraption for a pig farm in Tioga County (something that turns pig crap into electricity). All of these projects are funded by PA shale drillers through the Act 13 law and the impact fee collected…
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Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Regulation | Statewide PA | Taxation

New PA Legislation SB 1499 Would Stop Many Pipeline Projects
October 16, 2014October 16, 2014

In a cleverly disguised move to stop Marcellus drilling, two Philadelphia-area state senators–Andy Dinniman (Democrat, Chester) and John Rafferty (RINO, Montgomery)–have teamed up to introduce legislation, Senate Bill (SB) 1499 (full copy below) that would assess an “impact fee” on new pipelines and possibly existing pipelines re-purposed for a different use. The pipelines getting this new fee are pipelines that specifically carry natural gas, NGLs or oil (other pipelines don’t count). The fee would only be assessed on pipelines in what they define as “high-consequence areas” like, you know, the Philly area. Places with lots of residences and businesses. You live in the sticks? They don’t care. You don’t get nuthin. You live someplace “important” like Philly? Soak ’em. Similar to the current drilling impact fee part of Act 13 (this is what’s clever), the money raised stays local–50% of it to the county, 40% to the town/city where the pipeline runs, and 10% to the state Public Utility Commission. How much of this new “impact fee” does the landowner get–the people who are most inconvenienced by having the pipeline? 0%…
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Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA | Taxation

Corbett Starting to Cave on Taxing Natgas? Sort of…
October 14, 2014October 14, 2014

In a fight for his political life, PA Gov. Tom Corbett is dipping his toe in waters he has, until now, not been willing to enter. In an interview with the anti-drilling PBS reporters at StateImpact Pennsylvania, Corbett talked about the possibility of a “transmission tax” on natural gas. He still doesn’t support a severance tax (thank God), but he is talking about a new tax on gas flowing through pipelines in the state. Dangerous talk, if you ask us. Corbett’s best shot at re-election is to NOT cave on the issue of unfairly taxing the drilling industry so grubby politicians in Harrisburg can redistribute the wealth, spending it on their own pet projects (pork barreling)…
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Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA | Taxation

PA Democrats Introduce 5% Severance Tax to Kill Shale Drilling
October 1, 2014October 1, 2014

Voters in Pennsylvania stand on a precipice. If they elect a Democrat governor and restore Democrat control to the PA House and Senate, there is no doubt a severance tax will be enacted on shale drilling, *in addition to* the existing impact fee that has now collected over $630 million in three years. Such a tax would be an unmitigated disaster. It would almost completely stop shale drilling in Pennsylvania–and no, it’s not an empty threat or hyperbole to say so. It is reality. Need evidence? Last week PA’s Democrats introduced yet another bill that would implement a severance tax–HB 2508 (see it below). Fortunately the existing Act 13 has a provision that if a severance tax is ever enacted, the impact fee disappears. However, you can count on the Dems to repeal that part of the Act 13 law and double-dip on the drilling industry, thereby killing shale drilling in PA…
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Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA | Taxation

Former Gov. Tom Ridge Predicts PA Will Get Severance Tax
September 26, 2014September 26, 2014

Although we have a run-down on the news coming from the Shale Insight conference in today’s lineup (see Shale Insight News – Roundup of Who Said What), there is one bit of news that to us, towers above the rest. Former PA Gov. Tom Ridge was always a bit squishy back in the day–not truly a conservative. But an OK guy and an able governor. He’s a very important figure in Pennsylvania politics, even today. Ridge was, as you may recall, the very first Secretary of Homeland Security under George W. Bush following the 9/11 Islamic terrorist attack on this country. At yesterday’s closing session, Ridge said he believes Pennsylvania will adopt a severance tax, which is a very bad sign in our opinion…
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Industrywide Issues | Ohio | Statewide OH | Taxation | Utica Shale

Kasich to Laser Focus on Hiking Utica Severance Tax
September 16, 2014September 16, 2014

Apparently Ohio’s RINO Gov. John Kasich–he who calls skilled gas field workers from Texas and Oklahoma “foreigners” (although he loves the money and jobs provided by companies headquartered there)–hasn’t been “focusing” on the issue of soaking Utica drillers with high taxes and apparently that’s why it hasn’t yet happened. So Gov. Kasich will center himself, hum a mantra and focus really hard on screwing the Utica Shale industry in the coming year and that, he hopes, will do the trick to raise the severance tax rate in his state…
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Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA | Taxation

MSC Video Tells the Truth About Marcellus Industry & Taxes
September 9, 2014September 9, 2014

Somehow Pennyslvania’s Democrats (and anti-drillers) have been successful in planting the mind virus that the Marcellus drilling industry “isn’t paying it’s fair share” and needs to be taxed even more than it’s already taxed. MDN has pointed out the fallacy of this lie numerous times. The facts are: PA has a corporate income tax and also has an “impact fee” (a tax in our book) that taxes drillers in PA at rates comparable or higher than states like Texas that do have a so-called severance tax. In fact, over the past three years PA drillers have paid out $630 million in impact fees that have benefited all Pennsylvanians. That’s the point the Marcellus Shale Coalition (MSC) makes with a short video just out…
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