This week, MSC president Dave Spigelmyer joined KDKA radio’s Mike Pintek for a live hour-long discussion about shale’s consumer and manufacturing benefits, the industry’s commitment to best practices, and the potential negative impacts of even higher energy taxes. Highlights from yesterday’s radio segment:
On Consumer, Small Business Benefits
- “Consumers today are paying less than half of their natural gas utility rates that they paid in 2008. Nearly every single consumer product we touch today is manufactured through the use of natural gas. There is a lot of investment occurring to make sure Pennsylvanians benefit from this and from our manufacturing sector.”
- “The benefits of our shale revolution have been extraordinary. We’ve gone from more than 60% dependent on foreign sources of oil to today to less than 40%. We’re making major contributions to Pa.’s economy from a jobs perspective as well.”
On Effective, Tight and Modernized Regulations
- “I grew up in central Pa. and lived here nearly my entire life. None of us want to see disruption or environmental damage. We want to make sure shale is developed correctly and that’s why we’ve been engaged in every single level of government to make sure that we have rigor to our rules, that we have heightened standards of development, and that we produce this product safely and deliver it safely to homes and businesses throughout the Commonwealth.”
- “We’re one of the most stringently regulated industries in Pa. and across the country. There are nearly 70 regulations that govern all aspects of our business and our rivers are as clean or cleaner than they were before shale began. This is a technology that’s tried, proven, and tightly regulated. Every operator that’s active in this play is laser-focused on producing natural gas in an environmentally responsible fashion.”
On Pa.’s Natural Gas Impact Tax
- “This industry already pays a tax –an impact tax rather than a severance tax. We have one of the most rigorous tax climates of any state in the country. We pay all those same taxes every other company pays. To be singled out to pay additional taxes made very little sense.”
- “No other state in the country has an impact tax, [which] gives skin in the game to local municipalities. Plus, there’s a $6 million carve out annually to fund the DEP. That’s in addition to the permit fee increase from $100 to $5,000. As a result, the staff at DEP has gone from 60 to over 200 inspectors, making it number two in the country for its size.”
- “The nonpartisan Independent Fiscal Office did an analysis on even higher energy taxes and determined that it will trickle down to consumers.”
