Legislation

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis and legislative leaders want to reform oil and natural gas regulations, allowing more local government input on future energy development and, among other things, strengthen forced pooling requirements for producers.

With less than a month before the West Virginia Legislature’s 60-day regular session concludes, a suite of oil and natural gas-related bills is advancing in what has so far been a calmer year for the industry at the capitol, especially compared to 2018 when it won a long-fought battle for co-tenancy.

Three weeks into the lame duck period on Capitol Hill, a bipartisan group of House lawmakers has introduced a landmark proposal to enact a national carbon tax, from which all of the revenue would be returned as a rebate to taxpayers and some of their dependents.

A Republican-sponsored bill introduced in the Pennsylvania House earlier this year to update the state’s Oil and Gas Act of 1984 to clarify language and address the current challenges facing conventional producers has passed and now moves to the Senate for consideration.

Two Democratic lawmakers from Northeast Ohio have introduced a bill that would see the communities they represent and others where injection wells are located receive more of the fees collected to dispose of oil and gas waste.

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper has signed into law a bill to direct excess environmental-related funds to the long-term mitigation of abandoned oil and natural gas wells. House Bill 18-1098 addresses the adverse impacts from drilling activities administered by the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission and mandates that any excess funds in the account at the end of each fiscal year not be diverted to a broader state fund.

The co-tenancy legislation that passed during this year’s regular session in West Virginia is generally expected to aid natural gas development, but exactly how significant its impact will be remains unclear.

Republican lawmakers in the Pennsylvania House and Senate have introduced companion bills that would enact an updated version of the Oil and Gas Act of 1984 to clarify language and address the current challenges facing conventional producers

This year’s version of legislation that would make it easier for West Virginia’s natural gas producers to block up acreage for longer laterals by gathering leaseholders into large tracts has passed committee and is scheduled for its first reading before the full state House of Representatives on Tuesday.