Shell’s Magical Mystery Tour Convinces Pennsylvania to Fork Over $1.6 Billion for Plastic Paradise

Exceeding pollution limits faster than you can say “Abracadabra,” the plant has turned Beaver County into anything but the promised land of milk and honey.

Posted by John Donovan: 3 Feb 24

Once upon a time in 2012, the wizards at Shell, known for their love affair with all things oily and plastic, waved their wands (and wallets) to enchant Pennsylvania lawmakers into giving them a fairy-tale tax break. In this spellbinding saga, Shell promised to build a kingdom of polymer—a.k.a. an “ethane cracker”—capable of churning out single-use plastics galore, in exchange for a treasure chest worth $1.6 billion in tax incentives. Because what’s more enchanting than a mountain of plastic?

The plot thickens with Shell’s very own crystal ball—two economic impact studies it funded—foretelling a future of overflowing coffers and jobs aplenty, thanks to its plastic-producing palace. These prophecies were so dazzling that they blinded everyone to the fact that they were, in technical terms, a load of hocus pocus.

Enter the Ohio River Valley Institute (ORVI), a band of think tank heroes who dared to question Shell’s magical predictions. Their report is like the daylight that scatters the vampires, revealing that the largest subsidy in Pennsylvania’s history might just be a colossal pumpkin instead of the promised carriage.

The ORVI sleuths discovered that the enchanting studies were more fiction than fact. One study, conjured up by professors at the Robert Morris University School of Business, was so secretive that it vanished into thin air, owned by Shell and hidden from prying eyes. The ORVI, undeterred, pieced together the puzzle from the sequel study, which—surprise—shared some of the original’s assumptions.

Their findings? The methodology was as shaky as a house of cards in a hurricane, with optimistic predictions that would make even the most gullible fairy godmother blush. The study assumed the economic bliss would last 40 years, ignoring possible upheavals like global market tantrums, political witch hunts, or a revolt against single-use plastics.

But wait, there’s more. The study conveniently forgot to mention the billions in public subsidies Shell was pocketing or the fact that the tax incentives gave Shell an unfair Prince Charming-like advantage in the economic kingdom. Environmental curses, health woes from air pollution, and the plight of local peasants facing rising costs and declining home values? Merely footnotes in Shell’s fairy tale.

Fast forward to 2022, and Shell’s plastic paradise finally opened its gates, only to quickly become the villain of the story. Exceeding pollution limits faster than you can say “Abracadabra,” the plant has turned Beaver County into anything but the promised land of milk and honey.

In a twist that shocked absolutely no one, the state found Shell’s factory guilty of belching out more than its share of carbon monoxide, VOCs, and hazardous pollutants. Shell’s penance? A nearly $10 million fine, a drop in the ocean compared to the $4.9 million in tax incentives it pocketed for 2022 alone.

As for the economic utopia promised to the local serfs? Beaver County still lags behind, its dreams of prosperity as elusive as a unicorn. The moral of the story? When a giant oil company comes to town with a fairy tale, it might just be safer to stick to the Brothers Grimm.

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