WV Legislature Rejects NatGas Property Tax Rule, Do-Over in 2022
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 changes how the State Tax Department values producing oil and gas wells for property tax purposes (see WV Passes Bill to Change O&G Well Valuations for Taxes). The bill was supposed to streamline and provide a fairer system for assessing taxes on oil and gas production. It did the opposite, creating a complex system that is currently mired in controversy with both drillers and landowners confused about how much of a tax bill they will owe this year. Yesterday the legislature voted to scrap HB 2581 and start over in the new legislative session set to begin this Wednesday.
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It’s “mission accomplished” for anti-fossil fuel zealots who say even if the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) from Wetzel County, WV to Pittsylvania County, VA gets completed (now 94% done), their constant lawsuits and hassling of the project has ensured no one else in their right mind will attempt another big pipeline project like MVP–ever again. At least not in the northeast. How sad when evil triumphs over good, when Big Green can corrupt and abuse our court system by launching frivolous lawsuit after frivolous lawsuit (at least 57 of them) to stop a legal, righteous, and much-needed pipeline like MVP.
The Associated Press (better named Dissociated Press) is once again attempting to smear Cabot Oil & Gas, now called Coterra Energy, by playing up a simple legal move by Coterra aimed at resolving an ongoing criminal charge brought by the loathsome Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro. Coterra waived a preliminary hearing in the case brought by Shapiro on Friday, and AP is jumping up and down to exclaim this is somehow an indicator of the company’s guilt–that Cabot really did pollute all those water wells in Dimock. Coterra’s move IS NOT an admission of any kind. We will explain.
We’ve had our disagreements with Pennsylvania State Sen. Gene Yaw over the years (about a severance tax in PA), but for the past half dozen or more years Yaw, from Lycoming County, has been a stalwart champion of the PA Marcellus industry. Frankly, the shale industry could not ask for a better representative in the PA legislature. Yaw, chairman of the Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee, has done his best to defeat Tom Wolf’s Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) carbon tax. Yaw is also promoting more pipelines in the Keystone State.
Although liberals are “dumb” in many senses–i.e. they don’t understand basic economics, they don’t understand the human yearning for freedom, etc.–they are very smart when it comes to accomplishing their twisted goals. For example, Joe Biden (a very dumb liberal) doesn’t need to outright ban natural gas-fired electric power plants across the country–something that could be undone by his successor. Instead, Biden gets various federal agencies to adopt new policies that make it impossible for new natgas projects to get investors and funding, which accomplishes the same thing–no new gas-fired electric plants. We have a coming crisis in electricity production if Biden’s policies, as stated, are implemented.
The general consensus we keep reading is that most shale drillers are returning to “moderate” growth this year. But what does that mean? How much growth in production (and consequently in new spending) is moderate? Based on an article appearing in the Washington Examiner, we think we have the answer.
“Anti” in MDN’s parlance means “anti-fossil fuel.” Being anti-fossil fuel is a wholly insane philosophical position to take, yet many in the Democrat Party have taken that position. (Yes, we’re calling some Democrats insane.) People like Sen. Elizabeth “Pocahontas” Warren, Sen. Ed “Lackey” Markey, and Sen. “Crazy” Bernie Sanders, and others in Congress, bash away and demand the end of fossil fuels. Yet those same antis who demand an end to fossil energy have just sent a letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) demanding FERC do something to lower the price of oil, natural gas, and electricity in their blue states. Why? Because they don’t want to be voted out of office for their obviously failed policies.
NATIONAL: U.S. LNG feedgas demand looks primed to build on record highs; INTERNATIONAL: Shell says trading results in gas stronger; Analyst releases latest multi-year oil price forecast; Gas ships divert from China to Europe.
Olympus Energy (formerly Huntley & Huntley) drills in the Greater Pittsburgh region, in Allegheny and Westmoreland counties. In 2021 Olympus filed an application to build a new well pad in a rural part of Allegheny County, in West Deer Township. So-called “concerned citizens” got amped up to oppose the project (see 
Pennsylvania permits to drill new shale wells hit a 13-year low in November 2021 (see 
Rising Phoenix Royalties (RPR) announced it has purchased the future royalty payments from a landowner in the Marcellus Shale, in Washington County, PA. This latest purchase by RPR covers 98 acres drilled under by Range Resources. This is not the first RPR transaction we’ve reported on.
The Ohio Oil and Gas Energy Education Program (