There’s good news and bad news on this front.  The good news is that severance taxes doubled from 2013 to 2014.  The bad news is that not much of it is going back to the local governments.  In Pennsylvania, 60% of the severance tax goes to the county of origin, and 40% goes to the State government.  In West Virginia, 90% goes to the State, and 10% goes back to the counties, with 3/4 allocated to the county of origin, and 1/4 allocated to all other counties.

I haven’t spent the time figuring out what the State uses the money for, but I doubt much of it is earmarked for repairing roads, plugging old wells, mitigating nuisances like dust and noise, or cleaning up after those oil and gas companies that don’t clean up after themselves.  It seems to me a larger portion of that money should be going back to the county of origin.