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Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead submitted his slate of agency, board and commission appointments to his state Senate, including 10 that impact the energy sector. Mead reappointed Todd Parfitt as head of the state Department of Environmental Quality and Bill Russell as one of the three-member Public Service Commission (PSC), along with adding a new PSC nominee, Kara Brighton. For the 12-member Energy Resource Council at the University of Wyoming, he reappointed Carl Bauer, a private-sector consultant; resubmitted two earlier appointments from last year, Martha Wyrsch from Vestas American Wind; and Jeane Hull from Peabody Energy; and added two industry representatives, Tom Botts, a retired Shell Oil executive, and David Emery, CEO at Rapid City, SD-based Black Hills Corp. Among the other agency/commission appointments are Mark Doelger to the Oil/Gas Commission, and Bill Hawks who was reappointed to the Wyoming Pipeline Authority. The state Senate has five days to approve or reject the appointments.

Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead on Wednesday signed a new law changing the requirements for the state’s oil and natural gas supervisor, a post that has been vacant since June. Senate Enrolled Act 3 changes the criteria for the top oil/gas spot in the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (OGCC).

Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead is considering a pre-drilling water testing requirement for oil and natural gas operators in the state.

Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead spent little time discussing energy issues in his state-of-the-state speech Wednesday, but he did call out coal’s role in the resource-rich state, which has substantial natural gas and coal supplies.

Facing a “flattening out” of revenue sources in the wake of a scourge of summer wildfires and continued low domestic natural gas prices, Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead on Friday submitted a supplemental 2013-14 state budget with a 6% annual reduction in the state’s general fund spending.

Continued low natural gas prices have further cut into Wyoming’s revenues that will require budget cuts of up to 8% in 2013, Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead said last week. Pointing to gas spot prices at Opal, he said prices may be overemphasized, but “the gas prices are not where we would like to see them, and it is affecting our budget.”

Continued low natural gas prices have further cut into Wyoming’s revenues that will require budget cuts of up to 8% in 2013, Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead said Wednesday.

Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead last Friday announced new heads of the state’s environmental and treasury departments. Both new Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) Director Todd Parfitt and Treasurer Mark Gordon hold key roles for the oil/gas industry in the state. In replacing DEQ Director John Corra, who retires Wednesday, Parfitt will be involved in issues touching everything from water quality to fossil fuels, said Mead, while thanking Corra for his nine years of heading DEQ. New Treasurer Gordon, who fills a vacancy created by the death of Joe Meyer Oct. 6, faces a state budget deficit of more than $30 million in the next two years, exacerbated by continuing low natural gas prices (see Daily GPI, Oct. 24).

Continued low prices for natural gas, which is the single largest source of revenue for Wyoming, have forced Gov. Matt Mead to ask state agencies to prepare budget cuts of up to 8%.