9-25-17 (We will be involved in special projects until October 4 but will do our best to post relevant news for the archives and you, until then. -dh)

Gov. Walker proposes head tax to boost state revenue
Gov. Bill Walker’s latest proposal for closing the gap between state revenue and spending is a limited tax on payroll wages and self-employment income.

State works to formalize method for assessing oil and gas properties
Some of the affected parties are raising concerns as state tax assessors are finalizing a methodology for valuing oil and gas properties…

If upheld, could these enviro-attacks on American energy signal the end of economic prosperity?  -dh

http://euanmearns.com/blowout-week-195/

We actually have two “favorites” this week. Both have to do with attempts by the knuckle-dragging Left to find that energy sources are complicit in the cause of the Global Warming (hoax), and must be held to account. If products sold legally are held to be responsible for the unintended effects elsewhere upon society, no matter how small, immeasurable, or otherwise beneficial to our lives, no product is safe from similar potential liability. Our society is over as we know it, taken over by lawyers and bureaucrats.

Oil Price: Will This Climate Change Ruling Kill U.S. Coal?

(The ruling) came in a federal U.S. appeals court Friday. Where judges upheld a lawsuit from environmentalists — saying that any leasing of coal projects on federal land must consider climate effects from the eventual burning of that coal. Coal mining opponents have long been saying that environmental impact assessments of new coal mining projects should consider downstream climate impacts. With regulators up until now rejecting such arguments — saying that coal-fired plants will burn coal from somewhere, meaning that stopping one particular mine won’t solve climate issues. But the new appeals court ruling said that national regulator Bureau of Land Management (BLM) must indeed consider downstream effects when granting new coal licenses. This is going to become a major issue going forward. As one environmental group representative put it: “This is big. And we’re certainly going to be wielding this and using it to confront other mining approvals.”

PRnews: San Francisco and Oakland sue top five oil and gas companies over costs of climate change

San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera and Oakland City Attorney Barbara J. Parker announced today that they had filed separate lawsuits on behalf of their respective cities against the five largest investor-owned producers of fossil fuels in the world. The lawsuits ask the courts to hold these companies responsible for the costs of sea walls and other infrastructure necessary to protect San Francisco and Oakland from ongoing and future consequences of climate change and sea level rise caused by the companies’ production of massive amounts of fossil fuels. The defendant companies — Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil, BP and Royal Dutch Shell — have known for decades that fossil fuel-driven global warming and accelerated sea level rise posed a catastrophic risk to human beings and to public and private property, especially in coastal cities like San Francisco and Oakland, who have the largest shoreline investments on San Francisco Bay. Despite that knowledge, the defendant companies continued to aggressively produce, market and sell vast quantities of fossil fuels for a global market, while at the same time engaging in an organized campaign to deceive consumers about the dangers of massive fossil fuel production.