U.S. Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Antero’s WV Well Tax Case
In a court case that stretches back to 2019, Antero Resources, the biggest driller in West Virginia, challenged how its wells had been valued for tax purposes in Doddridge and Richie counties for 2016 and 2017. Antero said the combined value of its wells for those years should have been $1.488 billion. The state tax commissioner reckoned the value to be $1.513 billion. The controversy over well valuations, not only for Antero but other drillers, led to a reworking of how the state law values shale wells (see WV Supreme Court Tweaks Shale Well Property Tax Calculation). The controversy eventually led to a newly passed bill aimed at clearing up the fuzzy edges of how to interpret well valuations (see Bill to Fix WV NatGas Property Tax Rule Close – Will Gov Sign?). Gov. Jim Justice signed the bill (House Bill 4336) into law in March 2022. But there was still the matter of Antero’s valuations under the old rules…
UPDATE: There is an important update/correction listed below.
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With all of the good news about WV (and OH, and PA) winning the Biden Hydrogen Hub Hunger Games contest by scoring $925 million for the WV-led Appalachian Regional Clean Hydrogen Hub (ARCH2) (see today’s lead story), there is a potential black cloud on the horizon. Investments in ARCH2 might not actually come to pass unless the IRS resolves the 45V hydrogen tax credit. Yes, an obscure rule part of the so-called Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) has the potential to scuttle most of the planned investments in ARCH2 and other hydrogen hub projects.
The left always twists language in its attempt to push its ideology and agenda — even in Christianity. The Pennsylvania-based Evangelical Environmental Network (EEN), during its 15-year history, has supported every far-left environmental regulation proposed by the Democrat Party and has criticized every conservative, Republican energy plan that allows for fossil energy to flourish in the Keystone State. That’s been our observation. They call themselves “Evangelical,” which is supposed to mean sticking to the teachings of the Gospel of Christ. Somehow, they twist the word Evangelical into worshiping the mythology of man-made catastrophic global warming. They claim it is “creation care” to aggressively address global warming using anti-capitalist Marxist political ideology, like supporting the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), an onerous carbon tax aimed at killing off gas-fired power plants.
We remember (years ago) hearing Rush Limbaugh postulate this observation about liberals: “Liberalism is spreading misery equally.” Instead of cutting taxes, which boosts economic prosperity for everyone, including those at the bottom of the economic ladder, liberals seek to make more people pay more taxes. Spread the misery. Instead of allowing people to choose their form of energy, force them to use only certain (very expensive) forms, or force them to cut back on the energy they use (Jimmy Carter’s “throw a sweater on in the winter” comment in the late 1970s). Spread the misery. We now see this truism playing out with liberal Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro concerning the so-called Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) — a clever name for an obscene carbon tax.
In an administration full of destructive regulatory actions and legislation targeting fossil energy for extinction, the so-called Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) stands out as one of the worst. The IRA was made possible by a traitorous vote by West Virginia Democrat U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (see 
The transient workers in the Ohio Utica Shale field must stay somewhere. That somewhere is typically a hotel or motel. Belmont County, one of the hotbeds of Utica drilling, has many such transient workers. Their overnight stays at area hotels and motels create a big pile of lodging tax revenue, which is used to help fund the Belmont County Tourism Council. And the Council is thankful for it!
Last Friday, MDN told you about a new Cambridge University study published in the journal Science exposing the sale of carbon credits as a scam (see 
Carbon offsets are the same thing as carbon taxes. A carbon offset refers to reducing so-called greenhouse gas emissions by buying a credit from someone who plants trees or agrees not to cut down trees. A company gets to keep on polluting as long as it pays a tax to do it–pretending they are helping the precious environment by paying to plant or not chop down trees. It is the darnedest feat of mental gymnastics we’ve ever seen. Who thinks up this stuff? (Hey, wanna buy a bridge in Brooklyn? We have one to sell!) A new study by the leftists at the University of Cambridge published yesterday in the journal Science exposes the sale of carbon credits as a scam.
We have U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (lib Dem from WV) to thank for passing the so-called Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) one year ago (see 
West Virginia’s state budget runs from July 1 through the following year’s June 30. WV’s General Revenue collections for July 2023, the first month of Fiscal Year 2024, came in at a respectable $7.7 million above estimates, with total collections of $335 million. However, that $335 million collected is 12% lower than the $381 million collected in July 2022. What seems to be a major difference is a crash in severance tax (on coal and natural gas) collections, down some 93% year over year.
Newly-elected Gov. Josh Shapiro, who appears to be completely ineffective since taking office (which is not necessarily a bad thing), appointed a working group in April to help guide him on what he should do concerning the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) carbon tax and the broader issue of global warming (see 
The West Virginia State Legislature passed House Bill (HB) 2581 on the last day of the annual WV legislative session in April 2021. HB 2581 required the State Tax Commissioner to develop a revised methodology to value oil and natural gas properties for the purpose of assessing property taxes. The State Tax Department submitted an emergency rule in the summer of 2021 that was, quite frankly, a mess. In March 2022, the legislature passed, and Gov. Jim Justice signed into law, House Bill (HB) 4336, aimed at fixing the mess created by HB 2581 (see 
West Virginia’s budget year runs from July 1 in one year to June 30 of the next year. The most recent “2023” fiscal budget year ended on June 30. WV is rolling in the dough. The state ended the 2023 fiscal year with more than $1.8 billion in surplus funds, driven mainly by increased personal income tax and severance tax collections. The severance tax (oil, gas, and coal) accounted for only 15% of total tax collections for the 2023 fiscal year but accounted for 38% of the total $1.8 billion in tax revenue surplus.