Marcellus Activity in WV Legislative Committees and Courts

Legislators are coming to Charleston this week for their interim monthly meetings. Part of the schedule will include the first two meetings of a new committee focused on Marcellus issues. Dave McMahon of the surface owners group said his organization wants to participate in the discussion, but he isn’t hopeful.

Here is tentative agenda for the Select Committee on Marcellus Drilling, beginning Tuesday evening at 6 PM. This will continue on Wednesday at noon.  

1. Presentation on tax revenues from Marcellus by Mark Muchow of Dept. of Revenue

2. Presentation on economic benefits of a cracker plant by Keith Buredette of Economic Development Office

3. Presentation on horizontal drilling and fracking by speaker from WVU

4. Presentation by Don Garvin of WV Environmental Council

5. Presentation by two Morgantown city council members

6. Presentation by Dave McMahon, WV Surface Owners Rights Organization (WV-SORO).

With Marcellus shale drilling growing rapidly, McMahon says it’s time for his group to broaden its tactics. McMahon has already filed one lawsuit on behalf of a Marion County man who says two companies don’t have a right to put wells on his property to get to the gas on a neighbor’s land. Another possible lawsuit would seek to give surface owners the right to a hearing on well permit applications. A third potential lawsuit would focus on abandoned wells. There are 5,000 in West Virginia, said McMahon, who contends that the state should not issue new permits until it plugs those wells.

 McMahon said he also is worried because the co-chairman of the Marcellus committee is Sen. Doug Facemire, whom he calls the Senate’s biggest advocate of the gas industry. Facemire calls himself “an advocate for economic development.”

McMahon said some lawmakers have been open to listening to the concerns of surface owners, but in general, citizens have a hard time getting heard. “The usual lobbyist ratio, if you combine surface owners and environmental people, [compared] to corporate lobbyists, is 17 to 3,” he said. “And if you count donations to campaigns, who knows?”

Tagged as: courts, interim committees, legislature, marcellus shale, natural gas, wv