IFO Says PA Impact Fee Revenue Will Fall to “Record Low” for 2020
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 on Wednesday (for December). The update contains a rather ominous paragraph projecting impact fee revenues for 2020 will drop by $53 million–to the lowest level of revenue generated since PA enacted an impact fee.
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Leftists, like Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, always have to learn lessons the hard way. In August, Wolf’s Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) finalized and put into effect a massive increase in the permit fee to drill new shale wells, going from $5,000 per well to $12,500 (see 
In Pennsylvania, there are two permits required by the Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) for nearly every shale well drilling project: A Chapter 102 (erosion and sediment control) and a Chapter 105 (water obstructions and encroachments). The DEP has proposed and is seeking comments on wide-ranging amendments to its Chapter 105 regulations.
Last week Pennsylvania issued 21 new shale well drilling permits scattered across both northeast and southwest PA. Ohio issued 5 new shale well permits, all of them to the same company and the same well pad. West Virginia issued 3 new shale well permits, all in different counties.
By now it’s a cliche to say that 2020 has been an exceptional year–and not in a good way. For the first time in our memory of writing MDN, we witnessed widespread curtailments or “shut-ins” of wells in the Marcellus/Utica during 2020. That is, drillers voluntarily turned the values off and flowed less gas in a bid to (a) not sell the gas at prices that don’t return a profit, and (b) drive up the price of gas (see 
We’re coining a new phrase here on MDN today: Marcellus-to-Marijuana, or M2M. (We’re trying not to giggle as we write this.) A “medical marijuana” facility in Perry County, PA (pot growing plant in MDN vernacular) will receive liquefied natural gas (LNG) beginning next year. There are no in-the-ground pipelines in the area, so the production plant, located in the Perry Innovation Park (near Harrisburg), will begin receiving PA Marcellus gas in the form of LNG next year delivered by tractor-trailers–a “virtual pipeline.”
Energy Transfer’s (ET) Revolution Pipeline runs through Bulter, Beaver, Allegheny, and Washington counties in southwest PA. The 24-inch gathering pipeline shifted and exploded in September 2018, just as it was entering service (see 
In 2018 Kimberly-Clark announced the company would build a Marcellus gas-fired electric plant in Delaware County (near Philadelphia) to power its plant that manufactures Scott 1000 toilet paper (see 
This is rich. The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) took its sweet time reviewing a permit application to drill a series of Marcellus Shale wells on the property of U.S. Steel Corp.’s Edgar Thomson steel mill. Because the DEP delayed its review for so long, in October the East Pittsburgh Borough Zoning Board revoked a local permit previously granted for the project in 2017 (see 
Energy Transfer (ET) has had enough stonewalling from the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) with regard to its Revolution Pipeline project. Last month the DEP told ET it could not restart the now-repaired Revolution until the DEP got good and ready to allow it, with no specific timeline offered (see 
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf and his Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) continue to push a plan that will raise Pennsylvania residents’ electric rates by 50% or more, a carbon tax scheme called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). The DEP is in the midst of conducting virtual public hearings until Dec. 14. PA’s trade labor unions, dead set against RGGI, are participating to make sure Wolf knows of their opposition.