West Virginia Legialature 2019 Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

West Virginia Legislature: 500 Violations of Jobs Act Cited In 2018-19

A legislative audit says West Virginia’s Division of Labor cited more than 500 violations of a jobs act intended to give local laborers the majority of roles on state-funded public works projects.

The Charleston Gazette-Mail reported Wednesday that contractors were fined more than $100,000 altogether during the 2018-19 fiscal year for failing to have at least 75% of their workers be from West Virginia or surrounding counties. A majority of projects were in compliance.

A June Legislative audit deemed the act ineffective and recommended its repeal. The audit suggested the law failed partly because of a federal provision allowing local markets to include counties within 50 miles (80 kilometers) of the state line. The newspaper says millions of laborers in parts of Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C. were defined as local.

Joint W.Va. Legislative Committee Urged to Find Fix for Plugging ‘Orphan’ Wells

Members of the West Virginia Legislature heard testimony Monday in support of reviving policy solutions to address the state’s growing number of abandoned and unplugged natural gas wells.

In an afternoon hearing in front of the Joint Standing Committee on Energy, representatives from an industry trade group, the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection and the West Virginia Surface Owners’ Rights Organization urged lawmakers to provide more resources to the WVDEP.

There are more than 14,000 abandoned wells across the state. More than 4,500 are classified as “orphan,” which means they don’t have an operator. Sealing orphan wells falls on state regulators. Plugging one well can cost upwards of $60,000.

“It’s a big number, and we haven’t done a very good job, I think, as a state and as an industry addressing those,” said James Martin, director of WVDEP’s Office of Oil and Gas.

One challenge is money. WVDEP gets funding for well plugging from a portion of each $150 well work permit application fee as well as any forfeited bonds. Martin said those funding streams generage, on average, $80,000 a year.

In 2018, the Legislature passed the natural gas “co-tenancy” law, which governs oil and drilling on properties owned by multiple people. It includes a provision with the potential to funnel millions of dollars into the state’s orphan well fund, but not for a few years.

“For orphan wells specifically, we need significant and sustained funding to necessitate an appreciable level,” Martin said. “ At $80,000 a year we can plug one well here. So that’s not going to address the 4,600 anytime soon.”

Two bills that would have increased funding for well plugging ultimately failed to pass in the 2019 legislature session. A third bill did pass, but was vetoed by Gov. Jim Justice.

House Bill 2673 would have halved the severance tax paid by low-producing oil and gas wells. The bill called for a cut to the severance tax from 5 percent to 2.5 percent for wells that produced an average between 5,000 cubic feet of natural gas per day and 60,000 cubic feet of natural gas per day and for oil well producing an average between one-half a barrel per day and 10 barrels per day.

Justice said while the goal of plugging orphan wells was laudable, it should be paid for by revenue from the current severance tax, not by cutting it for some drillers.

Philip Reale, an attorney representing the West Virginia Independent Oil and Gas Association, which sponsored the legislation, told committee members the bill would have had “a very positive effect on West Virginia.”

“Everyone was in agreement,” he said of House Bill 2673. “It’s time to revisit this — time’s now.”

Dave McMahon, a lawyer and a co-founder of the West Virginia Surface Owners’ Rights Organization, told the committee that in addition to finding more funding, the state also needs make larger structural fixes to how it funds and enforces well plugging to prevent the problem from growing.

He said WVDEP should increase the bonding amount it requires of drillers and stop allowing operators to get one “blanket” bond to cover all of its wells.

“For some big operators that amounts to $27 a well,” McMahon said.

“We got into this mess because of low bonding, and we got in this mess because we allow transfers of wells,” he said.

The committee did not have a quorum and no lawmakers asked questions.

‘Clean’ Pay Raise Bill Zips Through House Finance, Heads to Floor

Updated Wednesday, February 20, 2019 at 6:05 p.m.

With the omnibus education bill effectively dead, the House of Delegates has turned its attention to providing pay raises for state employees, including teachers, service personnel and state police. The lower chamber’s Finance Committee cleared a bill Wednesday that would do just that.

The House Finance Committee sent House Bill 2730 to the House floor in a matter of moments during a Wednesday meeting. The measure, introduced on behalf of Gov. Jim Justice, would provide an average 5 percent pay increase for state employees whose salaries are set in state code.

A fiscal note from the Department of Education estimates the cost of those increases at $67.7 million. State police raises will cost roughly $1.8 million, accoring to a fiscal note from that agency.

“This is a promise that was made before the election, after election and at the start of the session,” House Finance Minority Chair Mick Bates, D-Raleigh, said after the bill cleared committee.

Bates said he hopes movement on the bill will help end a school employee strike, which now stands at two days.

“People need to keep these two issues very separate — and we are. But I think that by moving on this real quickly, what we do is we send the message that there’s good reason to call to the work stoppage to an end and for everyone to be back in school tomorrow.”

The full House is set to receive the committee’s recommendation at 6 p.m. The chamber’s Finance Committee will hold a public hearing on the pay raise bill on Friday at 8 a.m.

While interest on the measure is there, House rules dictate that the public hearing would take place before the bill goes to a vote. But questions linger about what might happen to the bill once it reaches the upper chamber.

Senate President Mitch Carmichael, R-Jackson, said he is committed to pay raises but will evaluate House Bill 2730 when it comes his way.

“I’ll be disappointed if all they do is merely a pay raise. But, obviously, we’ll deal with it if we get it. We’re intent on providing a teacher pay raise,” Carmichael said.

Funding for the state employee health insurance program — which has been another sticking point for educators — is addressed in the governor’s proposed budget.

Clarification: The update to this story makes it clear that the bill provides raises to state employees whose salaries are set by state code.