MSC: PA Impact Fee Far Superior to a Quick Fix Severance Tax
Once again it’s necessary to counter the false narrative in Pennsylvania media that “Pennsylvania is the only state without a severance tax” and “a severance tax will magically fix our over budget mess.” Last week MDN brought you news that 12 so-called Republicans in the PA House were behind an effort to force a vote on a severance tax (see PA RINOs Pressure House Speaker to Allow Severance Tax Vote). The ring leader is Gene DiGirolamo, a RINOsaur (an old RINO, practically a fossil himself) from the Philly area. DiGirolamo has been agitating for a severance tax for more than five years. Responding to DiGirolamo and others braying for new severance tax, Marcellus Shale Coalition president Dave Spigelmyer sent a hard-hitting letter (fully copy below) on Tuesday to PA House Speaker Mike Turzai. Here’s just one fact from Dave’s letter, to set the record straight: “It is simply disingenuous for Rep. DiGirolamo and his colleagues to fail to acknowledge that Pennsylvania already has a tax on drillers – called the Impact Fee – which was enacted in 2012 and is levied on every unconventional natural gas producer in Pennsylvania. For context, Pennsylvania’s Impact Fee brought in more revenue in 2016 than the severance tax collections did in Ohio, West Virginia, Colorado and Arkansas combined.” Did you catch that? PA’s impact “tax” brought in more revenue that the severance taxes in four other major oil and gas producing states–combined. And yet the media, and RINOsaurs like DiGirolamo, persist in lying to the public and repeating, like a mantra, “We don’t have a severance tax, we don’t have a severance tax.” What they are really saying is that they don’t like how the tax revenue generated from the impact tax gets spent. DiGirolamo and his ilk would prefer to give the money away to teachers unions and other supporters–in political payoff–rather than have it go back to the communities where drilling happens, where there is an “impact” (hence the name). Here’s Dave’s hard-hitting, and very truthful, letter to Speaker Turzai, outlining the case against a new severance tax…
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Anti fossil fuelers believe they have a new angle in their years-long war to prevent Sunoco Logistics Partners from building the Mariner East 2 twin pipelines across the state: drilling mud spills. When a pipeline company installs a new pipeline, the vast majority of pipe is laid in trenches. However, there are places (creeks, rivers, wetlands, roadways) where you can’t just dig a trench to lay the pipe. In those cases, you drill underground horizontally, something called horizontal directional drilling (HDD). When you drill through rock, you need drilling mud to cool the drill bit as it chews away. Drilling mud is typically bentonite, a non-toxic clay substance used to manufacture things like toothpaste, cosmetics and kitty litter. The only threat from bentonite is that it can smother aquatic life if enough is spilled. Or it can foul a water aquifer–making the water in your well cloudy for a period of time, until it settles. Such an instance recently happened in Chester County, when Sunoco’s drilling for ME2 fouled an aquifer, causing well water for some 15 homes to become temporarily unusable (see 
For the past two years running, the Delaware River Basin Commission, a cooperative organization with five members–Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Delaware and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers–has received more than half a million dollars per year from PA as its dues to support the anti-drilling organization. The problem is, PA pays its full share, but states like NY and NJ consistently short-change the DRBC. PA Gov. Tom Wolf is a big DRBC fan. Wolf supports the DRBC’s ongoing ban of drilling in the Delaware River Basin–which unfairly denies landowners in Wayne and Pike counties (PA) from benefiting from Marcellus Shale drilling–Wolf’s own constituents. However, the DRBC’s gravy train from PA is now over. Gov. Wolf recently allowed the PA budget to pass, without his signature. Part of the budget bill whacks PA’s contribution to the DRBC to just $217,000 this year–less than half of what is has been getting. The effort to whack the DRBC came from PA representatives in northeastern PA, tired of the ongoing drilling ban. Looks like layoffs are coming to the DRBC. They don’t do a heck of a lot, so why not? Time to toss the bureaucrats out on their rear-ends…
We spotted an outrageously fake news story published in something called the Public News Service that quotes an organic farmer in northern Ohio who is opposed to the NEXUS Pipeline–a pipeline that won’t even cross her property. NEXUS is a $2 billion, 255-mile interstate pipeline that will run from Ohio through Michigan and eventually to the Dawn Hub in Ontario, Canada. It is a critically needed pipeline to move Utica and Marcellus Shale gas from an over-saturated market in the northeast to markets in the Midwest and Canada. It is a joint venture between DTE Energy and Spectra Energy. The Ohio organic farmer claims a NEXUS compressor station a mile from her property “will create a toxic cloud” and ruin her crops. She also claims “toxins” leak from pipelines, and that compressor stations “contain dangerous cancer-causing chemicals.” Yes, any time you want to oppose something, throw out the “c” word, to make sure they get good and scared. Other problems caused by pipelines: livestock illness and death; spontaneous explosions; fires; mini-earthquakes. To which we say, what a load of organic bullcrap…
A recent story in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette points out the ups and downs of working in the oil and gas business. It is a cyclical business–with booms followed by busts. Always has been, always will be. When the shale industry took off some 10 years ago in PA, the industry couldn’t find enough people to fill the open positions. Then came a crash in prices two years ago, and along with it, massive layoffs. Not only in the Marcellus/Utica, but nationwide. According to Halliburton, a company that routinely hires tens of thousands, and then lays off tens of thousands, at the end of each cycle, when new hiring begins, some 30% of those who previously lost their jobs say “no thanks” to the industry when the help wanted signs go up again. Can you blame them? Thing is, we’re now beginning a new upswing in the hiring cycle. So the question is, will there be enough workers for the Marcellus/Utica region?…
Here at MDN we’ve always found the issue of using eminent domain for pipeline projects to be thorny. We see both sides of the issue, although we tend to favor the sacredness of one’s property. We tackled the issue back in May (see 
A very small group of anti-fossil fuelers recently gathered in Samson County, NC to spread lies about the Dominion’s Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) project. ACP is a $5 billion, 594-mile natural gas pipeline that will stretch from West Virginia through Virginia and into North Carolina, bringing Marcellus and Utica Shale gas to the south. The meeting, which local media said had “more than 20” people in attendance, seemed to be mostly representatives from outside Big Green groups pedaling the same tired old lies about pipelines in general, and ACP in particular. Try as they might to spin the meeting as some sort of “movement” among the little guy, the picture accompanying the Dunn (NC) Daily Record can’t cover up the fact there were perhaps a dozen people in the audience–and it looked pathetic…
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: Bringing jobs back to America’s “forgotten communities”; Lebanon County, PA zoning board denies anti challenge to Mariner East 1; WVNCC hosts oil & gas seminars next week; business and labor groups join hands to support Atlantic Coast Pipeline; Enterprise Products prevails in federal court against Energy Transfer Partners; NOAA admits methane emissions coming from cows, not fossil fuels; and more!
A group of Catholic nuns who prefer to worship Mother Nature rather than Jesus Christ (the Person they pledged to serve) is suing the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for approving the $3 billion, 198-mile Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline project–because it will run through their cornfield. Perhaps the sisters consider themselves Sisters of the Corn? We previously told you about this small group of nuns–who use the same natural gas that will flow through Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline to heat their own property (see 
An article published in the anti-drilling Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is quite bizarre–even by Post-Gazette standards. The article reports concerns expressed by residents in Beaver County, PA at a recent meeting of the Ambridge Water Authority. The opener quotes one resident this way: “‘No one knows what’s going to happen when the explosions are set off,’ said Bob Schmetzer, 70, of South Heights, referring to the underground blasting required in the fracking process. ‘God forbid that the dam would breach and take out human lives down Raccoon Valley … that would be a national catastrophe.'” Uh, Mr. Schmetzer sir…and “reporter” Eliza Fawcett…there IS NO FRACKING involved with installing a pipeline. Perhaps they’re both a bit confused? Mr. Schmetzer’s confusion likely comes from working with a local anti-fracking group, the Beaver County Marcellus Shale Awareness Committee. The meeting appeared to have gone downhill from there, with wild claims that “volatile compounds” from the Shell cracker plant will “settle” in the Ambridge Reservoir, endangering everyone who drinks water from it. And that the area will become “Cancer Valley”…
It seems the northern panhandle area of West Virginia is sitting in the catbird seat. The geography of Hancock, Brooke, Ohio and Marshall counties sits in between Shell’s ethane cracker plant in Beaver County, PA on one side, and the proposed PTT Global Chemical cracker plant in Belmont County, OH on the other side. The PTT plant is not yet official, but is certainly looking that way. The next “gold rush” for states including PA, OH and WV are manufacturing plants that use the output from the cracker plants. And the northern panhandle, being between both locations, is getting a lot of interest and attention…
In March of this year, Williams filed a full, official application for the Northeast Supply Enhancement project (see 
In June 2016, MDN shared with you the news that Munroe Falls (Summit County), OH had filed yet another frivolous lawsuit against Beck Energy to prevent drilling–after already losing a similar case before the Ohio Supreme Court (see 
[begin political rant] Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker is a RINO–Republican in Name Only–and not all that different from another RINO who was once governor of the Bay State: Mitt Romney. We personally find RINOs disgusting. Why don’t they just switch parties and be done with it? Join the Democrats, or if the lib Dems are too far to the left, join the Establishment Party, which is really what they all belong to anyway, regardless of the D or R after their name. [end political rant] Gov. Baker has (surprise!) caved to pressure from radical, insane environmentalists in his state who want to stop a compressor station from getting built in Weymouth, MA. The compressor is part of Spectra Energy’s (now Enbridge) federally-approved Atlantic Bridge project (see