Columbus Dispatch...
Kasich plans energy-tax hike to offset tax cut
State tax collections running ahead of last year; State income-tax cut may be on its way
By  Joe Vardon

Thursday March 8, 2012 

HOUSTON — Gov. John Kasich traveled to one of the world’s most-prestigious energy conferences this week with a basic message. 

“Right now, (Ohio has) a 20-cent tax on a $107 barrel of oil,” Kasich said yesterday at the IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates’ 31st annual conference. He confirmed his plans for a new severance-tax structure related to shale drilling that will offset his planned income-tax cut, first reported by The Dispatch on Saturday. 

“I mean, you gotta be kidding me,” he said. “They think that’s sustainable or fair or reasonable? It’s not. 

“Look, we’re cool about it, but we’re going to get this done. We’re going to get this done one way or another, and it’s going to benefit the whole state, and everybody will grow, and we’ll all be happy, and we’ll have our regs in place and our rules in place and we can have multigenerational growth in the energy industry in this state.” 

Kasich met with energy reporters from around the world yesterday morning as a part of CERAWeek 2012, Energy and the Economy: Quest for Growth. In the evening, he shared the stage for keynote remarks with Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper of Colorado, a geologist by trade. The pair, from opposing political parties, discussed the need to regulate — but pursue — oil and gas extraction through hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.” 

“It’s not a discovery of a fuel, it’s a discovery of a technology that translates into incredibly less-expensive natural gas,” Hickenlooper said. “It is a game-changer in every way.” 

Kasich, who also discussed other broad concepts of his yet-to-be-released energy policy, said the state would require companies to disclose the chemicals used in their fracking fluids. He said the state would regulate construction and maintenance of wellheads, and the state’s rules for high-pressure pipelines will be “more forward-leaning than where the federal government is right now.” 

Much of Kasich’s plan will need legislative approval before taking effect. 

Kasich told The Dispatch the income-tax cut would be “across the board” but declined to disclose what his proposed tax structure would generate. 

Kasich did say the proposed tax structure would “recognize the current low prices of natural gas” — a hint that taxes could drop for some producers. He addressed executives from energy companies at dinner on Tuesday night about his tax proposals. 

“He said he was willing to work with us to make sense out of it, that (the tax structure) would be better than other states, but that we’d have to come and work with him,” said American Electric Power Chairman Michael Morris, who is speaking today at the conference and attended dinner with Kasich on Tuesday night. 

“He was simply saying, ‘we want you here.’ A lot of people came up to me and said it was really refreshing to hear a governor tell everyone exactly where he stands.” 

Read this and other articles at the Columbus Dispatch