Governor Earl Ray Tomblin has called a special session to send the draft bill written by the Select Committee on Marcellus Shale  through the full legislative process on Sunday.  Tomblin says he believes the legislation could be completed by the end of next week.

The governor’s office did make a few adjustments to the draft bill, such as moving casing authority from the State to the DEP.  Authority on regulations involving roads was moved from the DEP to the Department of Highways.

Read the article in the West Virginia State Journal…

Read the draft bill, abstract, and amendments by going to the website for the West Virginia Legislature.  The Marcellus Shale section is on the left side of the page and has its own heading where you can link to different topics.

YOU CAN HELP!  HERE’S HOW:

You can rest assured that the capitol will feel the pressure from industry lobbyists this week.  Let our legislators hear a louder voice from their constituents.

1. Go to Charleston this week to speak face-to-face with legislators.  Meet with a citizen lobbyist group by contacting Chuck Wyrostock outreach@marcellus-wv.com.
2. Call.  Find contact information for your delegates here and your senators here.  Calling is more effective than emailing.  Leave a message if they’re not available.
3. Email.  Did I mention that calling is more effective?

After months of hard work, the Select Committee on Marcellus Shale finished its draft bill today.  A voice vote approved its passage, with only Senator Karen Facemyre speaking in opposition.  The next step is for Governor Earl Ray Tomblin to call a special session, but one of his aides has already spoken doubtfully of this.  If the governor decides the bill isn’t ready for a special session during December interims (December 12-14), its introduction to the full legislature will be delayed until the regular session begins in January.  Read more in the Charleston Daily mail…

Ken Ward, Jr., in an article in the Charleston Gazette, sheds a new light on the Oil and Gas Inspector shortage faced by West Virginia in light of the Marcellus gas boom.  Certain public figures have tried to say that the current 18 inspectors are enough to regulate the entire state.  However, reports dating as far back as 1993 warn of a funding and staff shortage.  For two decades, West Virginia has been unable to meet regulatory recommendations for the oil and gas industry.  Read the full article here…

The Select Committee on Marcellus Shale has finished its revisions on its comprehensive bill, and will vote Wednesday November 16 on whether to send it on to the full legislature.  Read more in the Charleston Daily Mail…

Delegate Tim Manchin, co-chair of the Select Committee on Marcellus Shale says public outcry over Marcellus Shale has made it increasingly more important that legislation be passed.  Despite committed work on the bill, the committee was unable to create a final product at last week’s interim session.

With only four amendments left to discuss, co-chairman Senator Douglas Facemire hopes the select committee can meet on November 7, when Earl Ray Tomblin will be sworn in as governor.  Facemire hopes that will allow for a comprehensive bill to be ready for November interims the following week.

Read more in the West Virginia State Journal…

Citizens have been keeping pressure on the Select Committee on Marcellus Shale to get proper legislation passed.  Senator Orphy Klempa says that the select committee will meet during September interims, and his goal is to have legislation “ready to go” for next year’s regular session, if not before then.  Klempa says that he and other committee members are learning as much as they can about the drilling process, and will be attending the Shale Gas Insight 2011 conference in Philadelphia next week.  The conference is sponsored by the Marcellus Shale Coalition, which promotes the “Friends of Marcellus.”

Senator Doug Facemire thinks it is possible that a bill be finalized during interims this month.  He also “wants to see this industry thrive, because our state needs the revenue, and we need the jobs. But prosperity at the expense of the environment or the citizens is not good, either.”

… Not good? How about not acceptable? Republican Senator Greg Ball of New York recently took a tour of Pennsylvania, and said it would be “over his dead body” that the damage and pain he witnessed be repeated in his state.

Se. Jeff Kessler (D-Marshall)

West Virginia Media (owner of WBOY Clarksburg and WOWK  Huntington) has reported that an interim committee of the West Virginia Legislature has created a special committee to study Marcellus shale and develop legislation.  Acting Senate president Jeff Kessler (D-Marshall), serving as chair of the interim Joint Committee on Government and Finance, stated that it was hoped that the Marcellus committee will come to a resolution that will then set the stage for a special session to be called in the summer or fall.

Back in mid-February, acting governor Tomblin signed an executive order creating a Marcellus to Manufacturing Task Force, consisting primarily of gas and chemical industry executives, from Bayer Corporation, Triana Energy, Caiman Energy, Northeast Natural Energy, Chesapeake Energy, EQT and others. Its main goal was to attract and encourage employers that convert ethane, a compound removed from natural gas during the refining process, into the widely used chemical compound named ethylene. (Ethane is a major component of “wet” gas from Marcellus shale fracking operations).

A meeting of this task force had been called for today.  However, Ken Ward of the Charleston Gazette reported:  “Just heard from Kurt Dettinger, general counsel for the governor’s office, and he informed me that they’ve called off tomorrow’s task force meeting, citing the inadequate public notice.”  So, after two months of its existence, the task force is yet to meet.  

The Marcellus Gas and Manufacturing Development Act was passed by the WV Legislature and approved by Tomblin to provide numerous tax breaks  for the very same industrial plants to be promoted by the Task Force.  Yet, a framework for protecting the infrastructure of the State, its land, water, air, and roads, is not being studied and has no “task force”.   Nor does the WV Office of Oil and Gas have adequate inspectors to enforce the existing laws, according to most observers.  No ”special session” of the WV Legislature has been scheduled in spite of the many calls for such.

State Treasurer John Perdue criticized three other candidates in the race to be the new Governor of West Virginia – present acting governor Earl Ray Tomblin; acting Senate President Jeff Kessler, D-Marshall; and House Speaker Richard Thompson, D-Wayne – for the failure of legislation to regulate Marcellus Shale drilling to pass into law at this year’s regular legislative session.

Perdue, a current Democratic candidate for governor, addressed a town hall meeting at the Stone Church Volunteer Fire Department on Saturday, where nearby roads show the negative effects of trucks transporting natural gas from drilling sites.  Perdue is 60 and originally from Boone County coal country. He said that shale gas development was “arguably the most important issue in the state” that the Legislature addressed earlier this year. “At the end, when the bell rang, they weren’t there for you,” Perdue said. “They walked away.  If I’m governor, I’m going to say, ‘We’re going to stay here until we get those checks and balances in place.  We’re going to stay here until we protect the people and their rights.’”

Eleven of the fourteen candidates running to be West Virginia’s next governor were at Musselman High School in the Eastern Panhandle on Friday night.  Betty Ireland, former West Virginia Secretary of State and Republican candidate, said,  ”A serious attack in our environmental problems here are the EPA’s egregious attacks on our West Virginia industries.”  Jesse Johnson, the Mountain Party candidate said, “The number one energy source in West Virginia is not being tapped, is not being used for jobs and that’s conservation and that’s across the board.”

Marcellus Shale was one of the hot topics, as regulations for the industry failed to pass in the state’s recent legislative session.  “As governor I’d call a special session to create regulations dealing with Marcellus Shale,” said Rick Thompson, Speaker of the West Virginia House of Delegates and Democratic candidate.

Senator Kessler and Acting Governor Tomblin are known to have differing views, as reported earlier. Other Democrats seeking the governor’s office in the May 14 special primary election are Secretary of State Natalie Tennant and Charleston resident Arne Moltis. Other Republicans in the race are current state Sen. Clark Barnes of Randolph County; Delegate Mitch Carmichael, of Jackson County; former Delegate Larry Faircloth of Berkeley County; Putnam County Prosecutor Mark Sorsaia; and businessmen Bill Maloney and Ralph William Clark and Cliff Ellis, all of Monongalia County.

The city council of Lewisburg, WV passed a resolution on March 15th encouraging the governor to call a special legislative session to deal with shale gas law and to cease issuing new drilling permits until such legislative action had been carried out to protect the water supply.  A copy of the resolution was presented to Acting Governor Earl Ray Tomblin and the WV Legislature.

The text of the resolution reads:

“WHEREAS state regulations governing Marcellus Shale development in West Virginia are inadequate to protect the water resources of West Virginia including the Greenbrier River watershed, and

WHEREAS state regulations do not adequately regulate the amount of water that can be withdrawn from aquifers and public bodies of water by Marcellus Shale development companies, and

WHEREAS state regulations currently do not adequately protect public water systems including the city of Lewisburg water system from contamination from liquid by-products of hydraulic fracking technologies being released into public bodies of water, and

WHEREAS as a result of failures of the legislature to support funding, the WVDEP does not currently employ a sufficient number of inspectors on staff to adequately monitor Marcellus Shale development, and WHEREAS the WV legislature failed to act in its 2011 regular session to safely and effectively guide the development of Marcellus Shale in WV, and

WHEREAS the council of the city of Lewisburg encourage the governor to call a special session of the legislature to address this issue in a timely fashion; and

NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, by the council of the city of Lewisburg resolves that no additional permits for horizontal drilling in the Marcellus Shale be issued within the state of West Virginia until adequate regulations are promulgated that protect public water supplies from Marcellus Shale development.”