Legislators

As the final days for public comment over proposed rules governing high-volume hydraulic fracturing (fracking) tick away, legislators in the New York State Assembly have introduced a flurry of bills on the practice, including one to extend a moratorium on it until June 1, 2013.

Pennsylvania legislators failed once again to advance a bill to the governor’s desk that would impose an impact fee on natural gas drilling in the Marcellus and Utica shales.

One day after HB 401 — also known as the Natural Gas Horizontal Wells Control Act –garnered overwhelming support in both houses of the West Virginia legislature (see Shale Daily, Dec. 15), advocates for the shale gas industry, surface owners’ rights and the environment told NGI’s Shale Daily on Thursday that the bill isn’t all they had hoped for.

Legislators from both chambers of the Pennsylvania General Assembly face tough negotiations into December as they try to reconcile the differences between their two Marcellus Shale regulatory reform bills, which include an impact fee on oil and natural gas drilling.

A bipartisan group of Kansas legislators is proposing a bill in Congress to give states the authority to inspect natural gas storage facilities, something the courts have decreed should be done by the federal government. But the feds so far are refusing to do the job.

New York legislators have sent Gov. Andrew Cuomo a bill intended to improve the state’s water management, using a permitting program to prevent “overconsumption” by large-scale users, which may include the energy industry.

Three Ohio legislators have asked the state’s attorney general to determine the source of a five-page document that, if authentic, could prove individuals connected to the energy industry are using deceptive practices to persuade property owners to sign oil and gas leases.

West Virginia Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin has asked state legislators, who this week are working through an extended budget session, to come up with an additional $2 million to pay for additional oil and gas inspectors at the state’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).

California legislators are considering a bill that would require all of the state’s intrastate natural gas transmission pipelines to be equipped with remotely controlled, automatic shutoff valves. Currently only some of the more than 10,000 miles of intrastate gas transmission pipelines have this capability.