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January 21, 2013 07:58 PM UTC

Ray Scott demonstrates profound dishonesty...or ignorance...you choose

  • 12 Comments
  • by: Duke Cox

(Promoted by Colorado Pols)

Representative Ray Scott of Mesa CountyВ introduced a bill into the Colorado Legislature on Friday that would exempt oil and gas wells permittedВ in the next two yearsВ from the states’ severance tax.В  В He claims the point is to help fund education, because after the two year free ride, he intendsВ subsequent severance taxes will be earmarked to fund college tuitions. Yeah, …right.

His supposition is that a freebie from the state is necessary and desirable to spur a slug of permits that will then create a resultant uptick in drilling, which will then spur job creation. He claims the idea is much like Amendment 58 which went down in 2008 by nearly 60 % at the ballot box…but it isn’t.

The Bill Ritter supported Amendment 58 would have raised severance taxes on O&G production and would have ended the decades long Ad Valorem Tax Credit that alreadyВ allows O&G companies to reduce their severance taxes in the amount of the property taxes they owe.В  This discount, which they alone enjoy, В amounts to hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes they don’t pay…year after year. To offer them another freebie and try to link it to a bill that did just the opposite to the industryВ isВ  plainly dishonest.

But, when you are a legislative toad for the oil and gas industry, you can never be quite dishonest enough…so Rep. Scott deals out this whopper…

 “The oil and gas industry in Colorado is arguably the largest industry in our state,

This , of course, is not true…and I believe Ray Scott knows it. В O&G are part of the energy and mining sector of our state economy…a sector which makes up under 5% of our state economic output. He is either lying or ignorant.

he also offers up another gem…

“Each derrick’s going to create potentially 200 jobs. If we could get one extra derrick in Mesa County right now, that 200 jobs is important. If we got five, that’s a thousand jobs.”

I am not sure what sort of math the good Representative is using to calculate this (or where he gets his data), but it is the same sort of calculation, I will bet, that allows the “blonde lady in the black pantsuit” to claim O&G supports 11,000,000 jobs nationally. I have checked withВ  the U.S. Dept. of Labor and I can only say to her, “liar, liar, pantsuit on fire” because she isn’t telling the truth…

and neither is Ray Scott.

Comments

12 thoughts on “Ray Scott demonstrates profound dishonesty…or ignorance…you choose

  1. Wow… this seems like it wouldn’t even get much traction with gas patch legislators since it would encourage O&G companies to work newly permitted areas for the next two years and neglect areas they’re currently in. Counties like Mesa with mature operations would see rigs sitting idle while places along the Front Range that are marginal but frackable would see a flurry of action during the tax holiday.

    1. Ray Scott is just the next in a long line of intellectually and ethically challenged elected officials that represent western Colorado. It is as though the redleg majority here cannot stand the notion of leaving the 1950s.

      The only thing that matters here is fealty to the Chamber of Commerce and Club 20. Here in Happy Valley, progressive thought is tantamount to heresy.

    1. The services industry…followed by: finance, insurance, and real estate; government; information; manufacturing; retail trade; wholesale trade; construction; and then mining…O&G is a part of mining. This is from the Colorado Data Book (TOTH, Konola!!)

  2. Once again, Dennis Webb reports the important stuff…

    “WPX hopes to drill at least two more horizontal Niobrara wells in the Piceance Basin this year, starting within a six-mile radius of the first well, to help it evaluate how productive the formation is across the basin.”

    That is quite a setback…isn’t the front range activity mostly in the Niobrara?

    or what may even be more telling…

    “Horizontal drilling involves drilling down and then horizontally along the shale formation — in this case, 10,200 feet deep and 4,600 feet laterally.”

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