Study Funded by Shell Convinced Pennsylvania To Give Shell $1.6 Billion Tax Break

In 2012, Pennsylvania lawmakers—including then-Gov. Tom Corbett, a Republican—crafted a proposal for Shell Oil Co. In exchange for tax incentives estimated to be worth as much as $66 million per year over 25 years—a total state investment of over $1.6 billion—plus a credit that would exempt the company from most, if not all, of its state and local taxes, Shell would build a polymer manufacturing plant in Beaver County, near Pittsburgh, instead of in Ohio or West Virginia. The plant, known as an "ethane cracker," would refine ethane, a natural gas, to produce single-use...