West Virginia is at least $1 million short of the funds its regulators need to oversee drilling in the booming Marcellus shale natural gas field, the state’s environmental chief told lawmakers Tuesday.
Environmental Protection Secretary Randy Huffman asked the House Finance Committee to consider the hefty permit fee hikes his department seeks this session.
Outlining the budget his office has requested for the upcoming fiscal year, Huffman explained that Marcellus drillers now pay the same $650 as their shallow-well counterparts. But the cost of regulating each type of well differ considerably, Huffman said.
Tapping the vast, mile-deep shale field requires an unconventional horizontal drilling method. To extract gas, operators must fracture the rock with a high-pressure, high-volume mix of water, chemicals and sand.
Huffman said DEP’s Oil and Gas office issued permits for 1,500 wells last year. While down from the 3,200 permits granted in 2007 and 2008, the number of horizontal wells increased during that time, he said.
“Our revenues dropped by over $1 million. We’re actually in an underfunded, understaffed situation as it exists today,” he told the committee. “We’re in a predicament, to say the least, in the Office of Oil and Gas.”
DEP has proposed increasing the fee to $10,000, in legislation introduced Monday. Huffman said the resulting revenues would fund the additional inspectors needed, while also covering costs of other regulatory provisions in that bill.
But industry groups have objected to the fee hike, and to other rules sought in the pending bill. Delegate Larry Border, R-Wood, asked why Huffman did not propose the fee increase in a separate bill.
These guys are going to make billions of dollars, and no doubt leave an environmental disaster in their wake, but god forbid they pony up a pittance in tax dollars to make sure they aren’t poisoning the watershed or blowing up neighborhoods. The invisible hand wouldn’t have it any other way- they like the regulators underfunded and understaffed. It’s much better that way, because then when shit blows up they can say “HOOCOODANODE!” and blame the regulators.
The move the Corporation is correct- the corporate citizen is a sociopath. If you keep reading the piece beyond what I linked, you will note that there is also work in progress to force homeowners who do not want drilling on their property to give up the rights to the gas underneath them, so the drillers can drink their milkshake from a neighbor’s yard. Ain’t the free market grand?