Pennsylvania is almost king of the hill in natural gas but success is threatened by Tom Wolf’s plan to take from landowners and give to public employees.

Tom Wolf, Pennsylvania’s trust-funder governor, owes his political success to public employee unions who have given him enormous sums of money to maintain their sweetheart pension deals. He has tried and tried to get a severance tax on natural gas for the purpose of paying them off. Fortunately, he’s failed as many times as he’s tried, as the result would be raid on the finances of rural landowners who are finally getting the some real economic development thanks to the shale revolution.

Meanwhile, that revolution has just about made the Commonwealth the king of hill in natural gas production, producing huge income for the state and localities, but it’s never enough for Tom Wolf who only sees a golden goose to be slaughtered.

First, the good news, from yesterday’s Today In Energy from the Energy Information Administration (emphasis added):

Pennsylvania’s marketed natural gas production averaged a record 15 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) in 2017, 3% higher than the 2016 level. This production is largely from shale plays in the  Appalachian Basin. Pennsylvania accounted for 19% of total U.S. marketed natural gas production in 2017 and produced more natural gas than any other state except Texas

Read more:

http://naturalgasnow.org/tom-wolfs-plan-take-rural-landowners-give-public-employees/