As some legislators in Montana have called for increasing oil and gas production taxes, a move that would likely hinder economic development and lower state revenues, the UK government is looking to cut their production taxes.
Bloomberg News reports:
Britain proposed a tax rate on shale production income of 30 percent, compared with the current 62 percent rate on oil and gas extraction, the Treasury said today in a statement.
The government said June 27 that shale-gas fields under counties including Lancashire and Yorkshire may hold as much as 1,300 trillion cubic feet of the fuel. A recovery rate of 10 percent — similar to fields in the U.S — would give the U.K. enough gas to meet demand for about 47 years.
To win support, explorers have promised local communities a 1 percent share of output revenue. Operators will also provide at least 100,000 pounds ($152,000) for every well drilled by fracking, the government said.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg News also reports that TransCanada says a 2015 start for the Keystone XL pipelinewould be “difficult.”
TransCanada Corp. (TRP) Chief Executive Officer Russ Girling said the timeline for U.S. approval of the $5.3 billion Keystone XL pipeline project will make the start of operations in the second half of 2015 “difficult.”
The CEO said a final environmental impact statement from the State Department may come in “weeks, not months,” after which there will be a 90-day review of whether the project is in the U.S. national interest. “I hope a decision can be made this year,” Girling said today in an interview at Bloomberg headquarters in New York.
If approved, Calgary-based TransCanada needs 24 months to build the pipeline, which would connect oil production from Alberta to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast.
By the way, Bloomberg also noted that the Keystone pipeline project has been out there now for 6 years come this September.
As for “green energy,” RedState.com looks at the latest in the global re-think that is occurring:
Spain is regretting its green energy adventure. How go things in Deutschland, after its knee-jerk decision to shut down nuclear power generation, post-Fukushima earthquake? Just how weary are the Germans of their new green energy utopia?
Australia has always been a leader in the effort to control carbon dioxide emissions. Its experience has demonstrated that punitive taxes make Australian goods less competitive on the world market, so it is moving away from a fixed tax on CO2 emissions toward a trading scheme
Find more on each of those topics by clicking here and checking out Steve Maley’s piece at RedState.com.
Down (Under) Goes the Carbon Tax…here’s the WSJ Editorial:
Australia’s old-new Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has a new-old strategy for winning the next election: ditch the carbon tax that is the Labor government’s signature achievement, a year ahead of schedule. Mr. Rudd announced on Tuesday that if his government is re-elected next month it will “terminate” the country’s carbon tax early “to help cost of living pressures for families and to reduce costs for small business.”
In his first go-round as Prime Minister, Mr. Rudd tried to get a cap-and-trade anticarbon regulatory scheme through the Senate twice, failed both times, and refused to dissolve parliament to get a popular mandate to press ahead. His deputy, Julia Gillard, ousted him and imposed an A$23 per ton carbon levy last year, which is set to rise to A$25.40 per ton next July.
The tax has not been popular, to put it mildly, and last month Mr. Rudd ousted Ms. Gillard. Companies have passed the cost of the tax onto consumers, electricity prices have climbed, and the government has taken to redistributing the tax revenues to favored political constituencies to drum up support for its green agenda.
By the way…from The Daily Caller- Scientist tells senators: Global warming not causing extreme weather
In a Senate hearing Thursday, environmental scientist Roger Pielke of the University of Colorado said it’s “incorrect” to claim that global warming is spurring more extreme weather disasters.
“It is misleading and just plain incorrect to claim that disasters associated with hurricanes, tornadoes, floods or droughts have increased on climate timescales either in the United States or globally,” Pielke said in his testimony before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. “It is further incorrect to associate the increasing costs of disasters with the emission of greenhouse gases.”
“Hurricanes have not increased in the U.S. in frequency, intensity or normalized damage since at least 1900,” Pielke added. “The same holds for tropical cyclones globally since at least 1970.”
While we’ve got your attention, Montana Media Trackers reports on an environmental campaign that could cost the folks in Libby, Montana access to drinking water:
Federal fish and wildlife policies connected to the Endangered Species Act (ESA) are delaying the construction of a much needed replacement for the the Upper Flower Creek Dam. The new policies effectively reverse a previous decision by an official of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to give approval to the project last year, putting the Northwest Montana town of Libby at risk, according to town officials.
“If the dam goes, then we lose our drinking water,” Libby mayor Doug Roll said during a telephone interview with Media Trackers Montana.
Officials of the USFWS — citing the ESA — claim the dam replacement project will affect critical grizzly bear and bull trout habitats, and that the project needs a more thorough environmental review known as a “biol0gical assessment.”