During the 2021 legislative session, West Virginia’s legislature passed 293 bills that ended at midnight Saturday.
According to the Legislatures website, only eight of them were energy- or environmental bills.
This bill passed with 54 of the 62 pieces. A multitude of priorities were overlooked.
West Virginia’s environmentalist groups had one goal: to increase funding for the cash-strapped Office of Oil and Gas, which is part of the Department of Environmental Protections.
This is one thing that it is very regrettable to see go when in the Legislature. Angie Rosser, West Virginia Rivers Coalition Executive Director, said that so many members were well aware of the problem and showed a strong interest to address it.
The Office of Oil and Gas will need $1.3million more annually to get back to the previous staffing levels advocates claim were insufficient. This shortfall is caused by its main revenue source permit fees drying up amid industry struggles.
This office is responsible to monitor and regulate oil and gas drilling, storage, and production. It also manages the state’s abandoned well-plugging program and reclamation program.
According to Scott Mandirola, DEP Deputy Secretary, 75,000 wells in the state are under the control of inspectors. This includes roughly 6,000 orphaned ones.
Mandirola told legislators that the DEP decreased the size of the Office of Oil and Gas by about 45 to 25 staff in 2020 because of a lack of funding. He pointed out that most of the office’s funding comes from permit application fees and that the office does not collect revenue from annual oversight fees like other divisions of the DEP.
Two bills that would at least restore funding for the offices to the levels it was before the downsizing received approval from a Senate panel on energy and one passed the entire Senate. But that was it.
Senate Bill 480By imposing a $100 annual oversight charge for unplugged wells producing more than 10,000 cubic yards of gas per hour, the offices inspector-to–well ratio would have been restored to roughly 4,000:1.
SB480 was passed by the Senate in a 25-8 vote on February 21. According to a fiscal note, the bill would have raised an additional $1.35million annually based upon 2020 well production data. However, the measure failed to pass the House of Delegates upon its arrival and languished in Finance Committee.
Three days after Senate passed SB480, Senator Energy, Industry and Mining Committee Chair Randy Smith, R. Tucker, stated that there was no interest to advance SB480 in the House. He then turned to Senate Bill 613 to boost funding for the Office of Oil and Gas.
SB 613It would have used a different approach in order to boost the Office of Oil and Gas revenue. It would have contributed 1.5% of the oil severance tax and an estimated $1.9 million annually for the office.
The bill was killed in the Senate Finance Committee.
This is a sad reflection of the priority given by legislators to protect our air and water, West Virginia Environmental Council Linda Frame stated.
The Legislature ignored the Constitution for the second year in a row House Bill 2725, which would have established a $100 annual oversight charge for all wells.
Charlie Burd, the Executive Director of Gas and Oil Association of West Virginia slammed SB 480. He argued that the $100 annual oversight fee of unplugged wells producing more than 10,000 cubic feet of gas per day was too costly and unnecessary.
Burd stated that a sharp increase in well operations expenses over the past month, along with a longer history supporting local property taxes bases by severance tax, made it a case for more funding for oil-and gas inspectors elsewhere.
It’s possible to see how this might work in the future, but the per-well fee approach can, when you consider the dynamic of that, harm companies in a nonuniform manner, said Burd. He also stated that he supported SB 613 because it dedicated a portion of an existing severance tax for funding the Office of Oil and Gas.
Rosser called Governor. Jim Justice, a coal magnate, called on Gov.
Rosser stated that nine inspectors are not enough to inspect 75,000 wells. Thats unacceptable.
Advocates for clean water and conservationists applauded the failure to pass a bill that would have exempted the oil and gas tanks nearest to public water intakes (from mandatory evaluations) and certifications by registered professionals engineers or other approved individuals under state Aboveground Storage Tank Act.
The state defines zones that are of critical concern as those areas closest to water intakes. They consist of a five hour water-travel time in streams to an intake with a width horizontally of 1,000 feet from each bank.
House Bill 2598It would have allowed tanks with less than 8,820 gallons of crude oil, brine water, or natural gas condensate in zones of critical concern to be self-inspected and certified by their owners or operators at least once a year and reported to state.
The bill was created to benefit the oil and natural gas industry by reducing inspection fees for tank operators. It raised concerns about drinking water contamination by tank leaks of harmful pollutants near public water intakes.
The House of Delegates approved HB 2598 by a vote of 77-22 on February 15, but the Senate Energy, Industry and Mining Committee voted against it in the final week of session.
Last year’s version of HB2598 passed the House, but was stalled in the Senate. It would have gone further and exempted the category of tanks nearest to water intakes holding nearly 9,000 gallons or more of oil or gasoline from regulation under the Aboveground Storage Tank Act. This Act requires registration, certified inspection, and submission of spill-prevention plans.
Rosser stated that he hoped that this sends a message that industries with tanks within zones of critical concern are aware that there isn’t enough appetite at the Legislature and the agency to consider further weakening those protections, particularly for tanks in these zones.
Keep looking for ways to improve it, Burd said.
In 2014, the Legislature passed the Aboveground Storage Tank Act. This was in response to the January Elk River chemical spillage that contaminated 300,000.
The Senate Energy, Industry and Mining Committee adjourned their final session without taking action for HB 4553. This bill, which in its final form would have permitted non-utility electric generating plants to apply or have been granted authorization from Public Service Commissions in any zoning district, was not considered by the Senate Energy, Industry and Mining Committee.
The House voted 52 to 42 to approve HB 4553It amended the bill to include an exception for wind-powered electric generators on March 1. Delegates rejected other amendments that would have made it ineligible for blanket zoning exemption.
The West Virginia Environmental Council was one of the opponents to the bill. They claimed that it would have gone too far in overturning the local zoning control.
After Jefferson County Commissioner Steve Stolipher lobbied to the House Judiciary Committee to approve HB4553 to override legal obstacles to solar development in his County, the committee approved HB 4553.
One proposed facility is a 92.5 megawatt solar generating plant to be built on 795 acres of farmland at a cost $125 million.
Wild Hill Solar, LLC, a subsidiary San Diego-based power producer EDF Renewables North America, was awarded a siting certification by the Public Service Commission. It will be used to build the facility in February 2021. The company applied for it in November 2020.
We could see delayed or lost investment in the state if the bill is not moved forward now, stated Tom Carlson, EDF Renewables regulatory and legislative affairs chief. He had lobbyed the Energy, Industry and Mining Committee for support of the bill. We anticipate that the policy will be reexamined in the future.
Carlson and other supporters of the bill argued that it would encourage solar development through more uniform permitting.
