Tag: gas

Ohio Governor DeWine to Announce Gas Tax Hike

Andrew Shirley

At an annual forum sponsored by the Associated Press, Ohio Republican Gov. Mike DeWine announced Wednesday he intends to formally recommend raising the current gas tax. The recommendation will come as he introduces his first two-year transportation budget Friday. Despite appointing an Advisory Committee on Transportation Infrastructure Issues specifically to explore alternative solutions to simply raising the gas tax, the governor made it clear he felt there was no real alternative. He did make a point to say the hike is “just to keep us where we are today and with the ability to do some safety projects that absolutely need to be done.” It can be inferred from this statement that his intention is to raise the gas tax enough to not let the state’s road and bridge repair funding deficit get worse than it currently is. This suggests that the tax hike would be more modest relative to addressing the full scope of road and bridge repair needed in Ohio. Currently, there is a $1 billion gap in funding. The current state tax on gas in Ohio is 28 cents per gallon. However, when combined with federal and local taxes, the total amount climbs to just about 46.5 cents per gallon.…

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Nine States Back Environmentalists Trying to Shutdown Search for Oil in Atlantic

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by Tim Pearce   Nine states are intervening in a lawsuit against the Trump administration for approving oil and gas companies to search for oil and gas deposits in the Atlantic Ocean. Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh announced Thursday the states would join environmental groups in a lawsuit to prevent the Trump administration from allowing seismic testing off the coast of South Carolina. “The National Marine Fisheries Service has issued what are called incidental harassment authorizations. They would, by their own terms, result in harm to hundreds of thousands of whales and dolphins and porpoises,” Frosh said. “The permits eliminate a major obstacle to testing and we content that the authorizations are illegal.” Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina and Virginia accompanied Maryland in intervening in the lawsuit. The NMFS, an agency under the Commerce Department, issued “incidental take” permits Nov. 30 allowing oil and gas companies to conduct the tests. Environmental groups sued the federal government Nov. 11 to prevent the seismic testing, which involves air guns booming in the ocean seconds apart for days at a time. Environmentalists contend the permits violate the Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Marine Mammals Protection Act and other regulations. The federal…

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Enviros File Lawsuits to Stop Trump’s Approval of Surveys for Oil Deposits

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by Chris White   Environmental groups are suing to prevent the Trump administration from approving seismic survey testing for oil and gas reserves off the South Carolina coast. Oceana and the Sierra Club argued in legal filings Tuesday that the Commerce Department’s approval of seismic testing violates the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act, among other regulations. “Allowing seismic blasting at this scale in these waters is not consistent with the laws that protect our oceans,” Natural Resources Defense Council Director Michael Jasny noted in a press statement shortly after the lawsuits were announced. Such leases could lead to exploratory drilling for the first time in several years. Acoustic tests involve boats tugging rods pressurized for sound and emitting jet engine-like booms seconds apart for days. The exercise effectively uses reflected seismic waves to measure the Earth’s subsurface, but the technique also poses risks to marine life sensitive to sound waves. Oil producers are supportive of the approval process. The American Petroleum Institute released a Nov. 15 report that shows tapping oil and natural gas reserves in federal waters could be worth $1.5 billion in tax revenue to South Carolina over two decades. Tax revenue from the…

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Obama Touts Climate Legacy, Then Takes Credit for US Oil Boom

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by Michael Bastasch   Former President Barack Obama said he was “extraordinarily proud of the Paris accords” before, rather ironically, taking credit for booming U.S. oil and gas production. “I was extraordinarily proud of the Paris accords because — you know, I know we’re in oil country and we need American energy, and by the way, American energy production,” Obama said at an event hosted by Rice University’s Baker Institute on Tuesday night. “You wouldn’t always know it but it went up every year I was president,” Obama said of U.S. oil and gas production. “That whole, suddenly America’s like the biggest oil producer and the biggest gas — that was me, people.” Obama: "Suddenly America is the largest oil producer, that was me people … say thank you." pic.twitter.com/VfQfX1SR0x — Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) November 28, 2018 U.S. oil production nearly doubled between 2009, when Obama took office, to 2016. Natural gas production shot up around 50 percent in that time. However, the boom in production almost exclusively took place on state and private lands where the Obama administration had little to no control. Republicans criticized Obama for lagging oil and gas production on federally-managed lands, which largely stagnated while…

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Trump Notches a Big Win Against Russia After Merkel Folds on US Gas Imports

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by Chris White   German Chancellor Angela Merkel is offering government support for a for project that would supply Germany with U.S. natural gas — the move comes as U.S. President Donald Trump seeks to loosen Russia’s hold on Europe’s energy markets. Merkel told lawmakers in early October that her government will co-finance the construction of a $576 million liquefied natural gas shipping terminal, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday. The project had failed for years to gain any traction in a country that receives the bulk of its gas from Russia. Trump has lobbied intensely for European countries — Germany in particular — to shift their energy imports from Russia to the U.S., if for no other reason than to diversify their energy markets. He told world leaders at a Group of 20 summit in 2017 that the U.S. wants to make it easier for companies to ship natural gas products to Eastern Europe. German and U.S. officials said Berlin is hoping that forging ahead on the project might help lessen the possibility of Washington leveling sanctions against Nord Stream 2, an unbuilt gas pipeline that would double Russia’s energy exports to Germany. Some U.S. officials believe the White House’s…

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California’s Gas Prices Inch Toward $4 Per Gallon At A Bad Time For Democrats

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by Chris White   Gas prices in Southern California are hovering around $4 per gallon as Golden State Democrats attempt to defend an unpopular gas tax outgoing Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown signed in 2017. The average pump price for regular gas in the Los Angeles area is hovering around $3.736 a gallon Thursday, up nearly 19 percent from a year earlier, according to the American Automobile Association. It’s an unwelcome development for Democrats who are fighting for their political lives. The average price in California stood at $3.683 a gallon, up 18 percent from $3.11 in 2017, the AAA said. A portion of the increase stems from the unpopular 12-cent increase in California’s fuel excise tax that went into effect in November. The state tax now sits at 41.7 cents per gallon and is one of the highest in the country. Nearly 58 percent of voters oppose the tax increase, including 39 percent who say they strongly reject the legislation, according to a survey the University of California, Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies conducted shortly after the measure was passed in April 2017. Only 35 percent of voters surveyed at the time favored the law, which also hikes vehicle registration fees to fix roads. Opposition against…

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