PA RINOs Pressure House Speaker to Allow Severance Tax Vote
A group of 12 Pennsylvania House of Representatives RINOs–Republicans in Name Only–have signed a letter to House Speaker Mike Turzai (full copy below) asking him to allow a vote in the House on a plan to impose a Marcellus-killing severance tax. We’re not really sure why the 12 run as Republicans–when they really aren’t Republicans, at least not in any meaningful way. Most of them come from the Philadelphia area, or other large population centers. The RINO ring leader is Gene DiGirolamo, a RINOsaur (an old RINO, nearly a fossil himself) from the Philly area, someone we covered for years because he keeps wanting to steal money from drillers and landowners to give away to his favorite causes (see our DiGirolamo severance tax stories here). On the other hand, PA Republicans have nobody to blame but themselves for this pressure. Republicans hold majorities in both chambers, and they passed an unbalanced, $32 billion budget–about $2 billion short of projected revenues. They should have had the intestinal fortitude to NOT OVERSPEND in the first place–but they didn’t. So they’ve left themselves open to extreme pressure from Democrats and RINOs. Now they must navigate this mess. An aside: If Republicans cave and implement a severance tax, it will lead to much-reduced drilling in PA. That’s a fact. PA drillers already pay a higher tax rate than other states with a severance tax–via an impact fee coupled with corporate income taxes (that other states don’t have). Just because PA’s taxes on drillers are not officially called a “severance tax” doesn’t mean drillers aren’t taxed. RINOs and Dems continually lie about that fact…
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It’s so darned unusual, we felt we had to share the news that in the heart of liberal New England–about 48 miles from New York City–the town of New Canaan, Connecticut has voted to add natural gas service to a 4.7 mile area around town. That means installing (digging and drilling) pipelines to carry the gas. The gas will first be installed at three (three!) schools (gasp!!), a YMCA (oh no!), an eldercare center (the inhumanity), and even (say it ain’t so) gas for “some residents.” Yes dear reader, common sense has broken out in a small pocket of New England, and their local elected leaders, the Board of Selectmen, voted unanimously to bring low cost, clean-burning natural gas into the heart of their community. What will happen next? Perhaps no increase in local property taxes this year? Well, let’s not get crazy…
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: Appalachia joins race for multi-billion dollar petchem boom; Kingston, NY neighbors of natgas regulation station voice concerns; 2 million gallon LNG tank coming to Bethlehem, PA; WV severance tax revenue continues to climb; is Wall Street setting up shale for a fall?; US natgas consumption will fall in 2017; but gas production will continue to climb; oil price will “plunge” unless production is cut, says Goldman; Venezuela-Russia deal threatens US security; electric vehicle use in Norway goes way, but so too does oil consumption; OPEC scapegoating US shale, needs to look in the mirror; and more!
CONSOL Energy, headquartered in Pittsburgh, began life as a coal company some 150 years ago. For the past half dozen years MDN has reported on CONSOL’s transformation from coal company to natural gas company. That transformation is now nearly complete. Yesterday CONSOL filed paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission that lays out a plan for the final split. CONSOL the coal company will retain the CONSOL name and get various coal mines and other coal-related assets. The CEO of the coal company will be Jimmy Brock. Meanwhile, CONSOL the natural gas driller will get a new name and retain the other assets. Nick DeIuliis will remain president and CEO of the natgas company. Current CONSOL shareholders will get shares in the separated coal company, as well as retain their shares in the gas company. While no specific date is given for the final split, the announcement says the company remains committed to getting it done sometime by the end of this year. The big question is, what will be the name of the new gas-focused company? We have a suggestion…
MDN previously reported about problems experienced last week in Chester County, PA (suburb of Philadelphia) with underground horizontal directional drilling (HDD) by Sunoco Logistics Partners for its Mariner East 2 Pipeline project (see 
Last March MDN told you about the desperate last stand taken by liberal anti-pipeliners in West Goshen Township, in the Philadelphia suburb of Chester County (see 
The Ohio Controlling Board, part of the Office of Budget and Management, has raided (i.e. stolen) $15 million from Ohio’s severance tax fund to use in settling a lawsuit from the late 1990s–a lawsuit that has nothing whatsoever to do with oil and gas. According to the American Petroleum Institute Ohio, the misappropriation of the money is likely illegal. The Controlling Board was set up by the Ohio legislature to handle “necessary adjustments to the state budget.” In other words, it was set up to pick one pocket and put the money in a different pocket. In 1997 Ohio widened a dam spillway in the western part of the state, and the result flooded the property of some unfortunate landowners, who sued. The lawsuit has languished for years, and it’s now time to pay up. The Controlling Board decided to raid/steal the money from the severance tax fund–a fund that’s supposed to be used for things like plugging abandoned orphan o&g wells. Most drilling in Ohio happens on the eastern side of the state. The flooded property in 1997 happened on the western side of the state. Anyone else see a disconnect and sleazy politics going on here? The severance tax fund has become the personal piggy bank for certain Columbus politicians…
We have a correction to a previous story. In June MDN brought you the news that the Sabal Trail Transmission pipeline, a $3.2 billion, 515-mile interstate natural gas pipeline in Florida, Georgia and Alabama, had been placed into service, flowing natural gas to Florida electric generating plants (see 
In May, MDN noted a disturbing trend in the Commonwealth of Virginia of entangling law enforcement in the non-criminal issue of surveying for a federally-authorized pipeline project (see 
The lack of a quorum (enough voting members) for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is has gone beyond amusing and angering–it’s now critical. Early in the new Trump presidency we noted the curious behavior of liberal Democrats, who are also virulent anti-drillers, in their hammering of Trump over lack of nominating people to FERC (see 
In August 2015, MDN told you about a lawsuit brought by a group of left coast radicalized children who want to force the federal government to become communist and “force action” on mythical climate change (see 
We’re not quite sure how to present this news. In some respects, we want to roll around on the ground laughing. In other respects, we’re angry at the semi “racist” overtones of a new “research” paper. We’ll report, you decide. A couple of researchers from the University of Maryland’s Dept. of Economics have published a so-called “working paper” via the National Bureau of Economic Research that finds a link between fracking and more babies. The paper, titled “Male Earnings, Marriageable Men, And Nonmarital Fertility: Evidence From The Fracking Boom,” says for every extra $1,000 of money earned by those working in the fracking industry, the pregnancy rate goes up by 6 births per 1,000 women. However, marriage rates don’t go up. The researchers say that people in rural pockets of Texas, Oklahoma, California and Pennsylvania who are connected to the fracking industry are “reproducing at a rate that far exceeds the national average.” In other words, those ignorant rednecks can’t get enough sex–IF they have lots of money coming in. However, those same rednecks feel no need to marry the women they knock up. Rednecks find it perfectly acceptable to shack up. That’s the MDN summarized version of the research…
Sounding eerily like a Borg drone from Star Trek (“YOU WILL COMPLY, RESISTANCE IS FUTILE”), the Ohio EPA (OEPA) has asked Ohio’s Attorney General, Mike DeWine, to force Rover to pay the Ohio EPA $914,000 in so-called fines it has unilaterally levied (with no apparent authority to do so) to punish Rover for a series of accidents while constructing the pipeline. Rover has not agreed to the fines and is challenging the OEPA’s authority to levy them. So the OEPA is asking DeWine to use the full weight and force of his office to force Rover to comply. Rover has had the pedal to the metal since receiving a go-ahead from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in March to begin construction to build a 711-mile natural gas pipeline from PA, WV and eastern OH through OH into Michigan and eventually into Canada (see 
Last November MDN brought you the delicious news that Pennsylvania would shift $24 million away from a boondoggle program called the PA Alternative Energy Investment Act and into a new program called the Pipeline Investment Program, or PIPE (see