Calgary Herald/CP. Canada’s environment minister won’t say if the country can meet its climate change commitments and at the same time green-light new pipeline projects. Catherine McKenna told reporters….
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Larry Persily, former Alaska gas pipeline federal coordinator. NGP Photo.
See Larry Persily’s just released energy links, mostly dealing with Alaska’s LNG competitors. Meanwhile, we urge readers to absorb the wisdom in the AK-HEADLAMP report below: Increasing oil & gas taxes in a low price or any environment is not a strategy that will attract investment or make Alaska oil & gas (LNG) more attractive on the world market. -dh
Alaskans are growing increasingly concerned about the state budget crisis that threatens jobs, government services and Permanent Fund dividends…
…a new Rasmuson Foundation poll says.
Alaskans also seem to be warming to the idea of an income tax and are surprisingly open to the idea of a sales tax, with almost two-thirds at least leaning toward that possibility, the survey showed. ADN by Lisa Demer.
From the Alaska Support Industry Alliance’s Headlamp:
As you listen to the Walker administration and legislators question the value of oil and gas tax credits and claim that there is NO return on investment to the state – don’t believe it. Credits provide a litany of benefits to the private sector, local governments, and state treasury. Below are just a few of these benefits:
- Cook Inlet oil production has doubled since 2010.
- Credits have helped bring new companies like BlueCrest Energy, Furie, Hilcorp, Caelus, Brooks Range, and Armstrong to Alaska.
- Credits have led to the potential for more than 150,000 new barrels of oil per day to be put in the pipeline – if the state doesn’t kill the program.
- On the Kenai, assessed property value of oil and gas property is over $1.4B; double what is was in 2006.
- South Central Alaska no longer faces ‘brown outs’ and is no longer contemplating importing natural gas. Cheaper gas is now also being supplied to South Central consumers due to the increased supply.
- Fairbanks can look to Cook Inlet for a reliable, affordable supply of natural gas.
- New streams of revenue have been created for local governments.
- Royalty payments to the State are up and are projected to continuing increasing over the next 10 years.
It’s also important to remember the work a company must do and the amount of money they must invest in our state before they can apply for a tax credit:
Credits are not handouts, nor do they fail to provide the state a return on investment (ROI). Jobs, new production of oil and gas, and new income streams are returns on investment. When looking at specific projects it becomes clear that credits (over the long run) provide significant returns to the state treasury.
In this project involving BlueCrest Energy, the state recoups its entire investment in 5 years:
Alaska’s oil and gas tax credit system has proven to be very successful at attracting new investment (billions of dollars) growing our economy and increasing production both on the North Slope and in Cook Inlet. For these reasons the Alliance opposes HB 247.
Canada’s oil and gas sector is on track to have the biggest two-year decline in capital spending in its history.
The industry’s main association says spending on major projects is forecast to drop to $31 billion in 2016.
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The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers says that’s the biggest drop in records going back to 1947.
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“Times are tough today in Canada’s oil and natural gas sector, but the world will require responsibly produced energy for a long time to come,” said Tim McMillan, CAPP president and chief executive officer. Read more: Calgary Herald by CP.
U.S. & Canadian Environmental Regulations Have Moved Beyond “Reasonable” To Becoming Weapons Against Capitalism
If we lose free market fossil energy to the religions of socialism (i.e. climate change omniscience and regulatory omnipotence), we lose freedom
by
Dave Harbour
The trend in anti-fossil fuel federal and local governments in Canada and the U.S. is similar. Don’t just rely on laws and existing regulations. Go all out to increase tax and/or regulatory burdens so that increased risk/cost prohibits successful business operations. And…do so when oil & gas prices are low. Do it when government has restricted the building of pipelines to markets. And, do it when companies are already firing free enterprise employees, selling valuable assets, and, falling into bankruptcy. In short, don’t let the low price oil crisis go to waste!
And use the same technique on Mining and other natural resource industries.
In this way, the United Nations climate change/global warming objective will be secured. And what is that objective? As we reported last year, “Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of U.N.’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, admitted that the goal of environmental activists is not to save the world from ecological calamity but to destroy capitalism.” Critical thinkers, upon reflection, are likely to agree that the liberal/socialist government in Canada (i.e. which easily accepts the US denial of Keystone XL, etc. and supports Paris climate change strategies) and the democrat/socialist leadership in the U.S. (i.e. which has denied Keystone XL permits (video), etc. and supports Paris climate change strategies) have the same allies: 1) International NGO enviro-activists and 2) crony capitalists bleeding taxpayers and ratepayers of subsidies to keep uneconomic alternative energy industry voters employed while demonizing fossil fuel wealth producers. This is why we developed the category, “Enviro-Industrial-Governmental Cabal“.
Please note that we at NGP are not “Name Callers”; we are describing an actual, international movement which we have documented herein with the facts.
Philosopher George Santayana cautioned us that, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” While we are wise to let the experience of others enable us to avoid repeating mistakes of history, we are also reminded of another historical lesson. The handwriting on the wall, foresaw the demise of King Belshazzar’s kingdom. Today’s handwriting on the wall CLEARLY teaches us that powerful, organized forces have formed to destroy free enterprise and freedom itself. The technique it uses is the accumulation of power. Power is accumulated as capitalism is killed by the “death of a thousand cuts” while, conversely, those destroying it grow in subsidized prosperity, population, voting strength, government wealth, control and dictatorial power.
This process of political evolution is now transforming two of the greatest democracies of the world — Canada and the United States — into mere shadows of their former, free selves, new monuments to the historically disproven religions of socialism and communism.
Once the new socialist forces are in charge, government ownership (i.e. or, bureaucratic control) of fossil fuel and other free market companies will be complete. These and other world governments will aggressively exploit energy’s wealth potential in order to finally secure and protect their new power base. Ironically, environmental protection — and idealists who have advocated it — will be very low on the list of dictatorial priorities.
The Calgary Herald piece below describes another ‘cut’ that will contribute to the bleeding of a formerly healthy, free enterprise industry.
Liberal activists are not satisfied with increasing monitoring, enforcement and control over the private sector. They are only satisfied when the business contributors and voters of those private industries are either pushed into bankruptcy, expropriated by government or controlled by loyal, socialist bureaucracies.
If government bureaucrats were content to wisely manage the affairs of government on behalf of a free people, they would set reasonable laws and regulations to implement them. Then they would enforce them. They would NOT seek new statutory or regulatory burdens every single time a pipeline, airline, train, water main or electric transmission line failed. In those cases, existing laws (i.e. perhaps with only minor modification) would suffice to 1) correct oversights, 2) punish the guilty — if any, and 3) safeguard the public interest.
Chris Varcoe, Calgary Herald. The National Energy Board announced Tuesday that pipeline companies will be required to make their emergency response plans public. On the same day, the province moved to bring the arm’s-length environmental monitoring of the oilsands back inside the Alberta government.
At the Calgary-based NEB, the agency ordered all federally regulated pipelines to post their emergency procedure manuals online by the end of September. Read more….
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