Tag: Pennsylvania budget

“Poverty-stricken” Shell Oil offered $2B taxpayer handout to set up in Pa.

Shell oil stands to gain two billion in tax incentives to build a 400-job plant near Pittsburgh

Shell Oil Co., a child of Royal Dutch Shell – the latter reportedly the largest oil company in Europe and second largest company in the world – is thinking about building an ethane cracker plant in Monaca Borough, Beaver County, 30-some miles northwest of Pittsburgh, Pa.

The proposed plant would be used to “crack” ethane from natural gas derived from wells drilled into the Marcellus Shale in the southwestern region of the state. The cracking process results in ethylene, used mostly in making plastics.

The plant will benefit from Act 16 of 2012,  a bill the Pa. General Assembly adopted to exempt the giant firm from paying state income and property taxes for 15 years. Continue reading “Poverty-stricken” Shell Oil offered $2B taxpayer handout to set up in Pa.

Corbett opts for short-term profits over environment and education

GAHS awaits students, while administrators wrangle with governor's budget cuts
Gov. Tom Corbett’s seems to believe that putting money into things like education, so that future jobs might find young Pennsylvanians qualified to take them, is unnecessary, wasteful spending. Investment, on the other hand, means continued tax breaks to gas and coal companies so they can have profits now, some of which they may later contribute to his re-election campaign.

Case in point: A report published in December revealed the state gives about $2.9 billion in subsidies to the fossil fuel industry. Continue reading …