Free Republic

Steamboat Springs — Routt County commissioners are among local government officials in Colorado who are railing against the latest plans of the state legislature to appropriate $20 million from the mineral severance tax fund to balance the 2015-16 budget. "Since I’ve been a commissioner, this is the fourth or fifth time they’ve raided the severance tax to take care of the state’s budget, and to the detriment of local governments,” Routt County Commission Chairman Doug Monger said. “If we don’t make noise about it, it will become a normal event. We have to get out there and say ‘This really...

Colorado severance taxes on natural-gas and oil production will plunge 84 percent to $40 million in fiscal year 2010... That compares with $250 million expected this fiscal year, which ends June 30. A dramatic drop in the price of natural gas and oil is largely to blame for the expected precipitous decline in severance taxes, said Steve Colby, a research contractor with the Colorado Department of Local Affairs, the agency charged with distributing half the state's severance tax. "This is worse than we expected," he said. "We are being more thoughtful and constrained in our use of funds." The department...

Beckley coal consultant H. Paul Kizer filed preliminary campaign papers on Friday to run for governor in 2004 as a Republican. Filing preliminary papers with the secretary of state allows a candidate to begin accepting campaign contributions. Kizer, who once operated 44 coal companies that ended up in bankruptcy beginning in 1993, believes West Virginia taxes coal too heavily. "Let’s add a severance tax on timber and natural gas producers," Kizer said Friday. "An out-of-state firm is going into Clay County to build a 20-inch pipeline to send gas to a Duke Power facility in North Carolina that will replace...