CHARLESTON – On the last day of the 60-day session, the Senate dealt with bills regarding roads, orphan gas well capping, industrial hemp, Hopemont Hospital and more. And a reneged deal on a gas bill lead to an angry floor speech in the closing minutes of the session.
The session ran from 10 a.m. to midnight. With a relatively light calendar, there were frequent breaks for meals, conference committee meetings, food and rest. Immediately upon adjournment sine die, the Senate reconvened for the special session called by the governor for education issues, and immediately re-adjourned until called back by the president.
Here are some highlights.
— HB 2694 sets up regulation of industrial hemp. It passed 32-1 and returns to the House for amendment concurrence.
— HB 3044 requires the Division of Highways to retool its road funds allocation formula for legislative approval. It must have a proposed legislative rule containing the formula ready by June 30, 2020 for approval during the 2021 legislative session. It passed 33-0 and returned to the House which refused to concur and led to a compromise, which the Senate accepted. It goes to the governor. This bill originated from the Monongalia County House delegation.
— SB 622, the campaign finance bill, underwent a Senate title amendment to the House amendment and bounced back to the House. The House agreed and it went to the governor.
— SB 665 is the expedited horizontal gas well permitting bill. The collapse of a deal on the permitting fees set Energy chair Randy Smith, R-Tucker, on an angry tirade during the last half hour of the evening.
Smith said there was agreement with the industry, but a couple lobbyists for a couple out-of-state companies managed to undermine the deal in the House.
He tries to be a nice guy, he said, and worked this session on crafting this bill for the gas companies that asked for it. The original bill set the fees at $20,000 for the first horizontal well on a pad and $10,000 for additional wells.
The House reduced it to $10,000 and $5,000, respectively. The Senate then raised the ante, bumping up the fees to $30,000 and $15,000, which is what the companies suggested they would be willing to pay.
The House initially agreed to the Senate’s original figures, but delayed for several hours delivering that message. This reflected the lobbyists at work, Smith said.
The House revised its counteroffer back to $10,000 and $5,000, and then, Smith said, he got emails from House leaders saying the bill is dead.
He yelled, “If this is the game they want to play, I’m a game player! I’m fed up! … This is a natural resource we have in our state! It’s ours!”
The lobbyists stabbed everyone in the back who negotiated the deal in good faith and gave the industry a black eye, he said. “I’ve never been so disgusted with myself for being a nice guy.”
A couple Democrat senators offered Smith some words of support and the Senate then voted unanimously to reject the House counteroffer — killing the bill.
Smith wouldn’t name the companies, but on the floor said “The deal went south, and the pun is deliberate.” That indicates he was referring to Arkansas-based Southwestern Energy as one of the companies.
Smith said afterward that he hopes the industry takes care of the problem internally, because a lot of producers are going to wake up and learn the lobbyists spoiled the deal.
He noted that the bill devoted half of the fee income to the Department of Environmental Protection and half to orphan well capping, with everything above $1 million going to capping.
“The House said they don’t care about plugging abandoned wells,” he said.
— SB 543 deals with used car sales. It allows used vehicles to be sold “as is” under specified conditions: It is inoperable or a total loss; it’s been custom built or modified for show; it sold for less than $4,000, has more than 100,000 miles on the odometer or is at least 7 years old. The Senate concurred with House amendments to the conditions and sent it to the governor.
— SB 544 raises State Police pay. The Senate agreed to the House version: a one-time, 5 percent hike of $2,370. It goes to the governor.
— HB 2673 would exempt from the 5 percent severance tax all gas wells producing less than 60,000 cubic feet per day and oil wells producing less than 10 barrels per day.
As it came from the House, instead of a tax, these wells would be charged a 2.5 percent fee on the value of product sold that would go into an Oil and Gas Abandoned Well Plugging Fund operated by the Department of Environmental Protection.
A Finance amendment changed the fee back to a 2.5 percent severance tax. It was explained that the DEP has no existing mechanism to collect the money, while the state Tax Department already has the means to collect it and send it to the right account.
The Senate passed this version 33-1 and sent it back to the House.
— HB 2779 would have provided a means for royalties due to unknown or unlocatable mineral owners to be transferred to the Oil and Gas Reclamation Fund after seven years. A misunderstanding of its intent killed it.
The bill addresses two situations. One deals with partition suits, where multiple mineral interests in a single tract are sold to a single buyer via a civil suit and the proceeds are divided among the previous owners.
For unknown and unlocatable owners in these cases, the money is held in county courts. Under the bill, the court will appoint a guardian for the funds. Funds unclaimed after seven years will go into the reclamation fund.The other deals with situations where, after seven years of unpaid property taxes, the surface owner has the option to buy the mineral rights. In these cases, royalties accumulated and held in the court up until the time the surface owner signs the deed will go to the reclamation fund. The surface owner will receive all subsequent royalties and rights to future development.
Sens. Corey Palumbo, D-Kanawha, and Doug Facemire, D-Braxton, complained that the bill would unfairly harm surface owners who are currently awaiting seven years’ worth royalties from a tract beneath their land and would lose it under this bill.
It died 4-30.
West Virginia Surface Owners Rights Organization co-founder Dave McMahon spoke with the two senators afterward, explaining that they misunderstood the bill, which was endorsed by SORO.
He told The Dominion Post, “I’m deeply disappointed that at least two senators misunderstood whether they were helping surface owners or not.”
All the royalty money, from the first seven years and thereafter, is windfall, he said. The bill would have taken part of that windfall money and devoted it to plugging wells on their land that are harming their land.
— SB 317 allows three or more adjacent counties to form a multicounty mountain biking trail network authority. Combined into it is a House bill, HB 2420, which specifically creates the Mountaineer Trail Network Recreation Authority serving Barbour, Grant, Harrison, Marion, Mineral, Monongalia, Preston, Randolph, Taylor and Tucker counties.
A conference committee met to iron out some minor differences between the House and Senate versions, and to add a provision allowing other contiguous counties to join the Mountaineer network.
House Government Organization Chair Gary Howell, R-Mineral, said a number of Panhandle counties have pieces in place to join the Mountaineer network and are working on ways to connect them. A Maryland study showed that the network – with a loop from Pittsburgh down to Mon County and over to Cumberland – could see 50,000 visitors per year, each spending about $400 per day.
The Senate adopted the report just before 10 p.m. The House adopted it just before 10:30 and it went to the governor.
— SB 522, Randy’s Dream, will head for a conference committee. The Senate dedicated $110 million for each of two years to the bill’s Special Road Repair Fund. The House version kept the fund but took out the money. The Senate refused to accept the House change. A conference committee drew up an agreement that authorizes the Division of Highways to place up to $80 million per year into the fund.
— HB 2933 increases the penalties for child abuse resulting in serious injury or death. It passed 34-0 and returns to the House.
— HB 3139 creates a PEIA Rainy Day Fund intended to help offset premium hikes and benefit cuts. It prefunds PEIA to address three years of future premium hikes. It passed 34-0 and returns to the House.
— HB 2665 is a companion to 3139. It appropriates $105 million for the PEIA Rainy Day Fund. It also passed 34-0. After agreement on some amendments on both sides, it passed and went to the governor.
— SCR 7 and SR 78, both lead sponsored by Sen. Dave Sypolt, R-Preston, would call on Congress to align the interstate highway weight limit in West Virginia with the U.S. highway weight limit.
The limit for both is 80,000 pounds. But the U.S. highway limit includes a 10 percent tolerance allowance that raises the limit to 88,000 pounds, with specifications for axle alignments. DOH would like that same tolerance for the interstates, to get some of the traffic onto the interstates. It has already been working with the Congressional delegation to pave the way.
SCR 7 was adopted by the Senate on Feb. 14, but died in the House, as it has for several years.
Saturday afternoon, in a floor speech, Sypolt told his colleagues about the fate of the resolution and urged his colleagues to join him in sponsoring a new resolution, just for the Senate.
That led to SR 78 being introduced a few hours later. Transportation chair Charles Clements, who co-sponsored it with the rest of the Senate, explained the resolution and said, “Let’s get these heavy trucks off our back roads and on the interstates where it’s much safer.”
It was adopted 34-0.
— HB 3131 directs the Department of Health and Human Resources to annually adjust employee salary schedules and streamline hiring practices. It’s meant to address staffing issues at the seven state hospitals and Child Protective Services.
The hospitals, which pay staff nurses relatively low rates, are forced to hire contract travel nurses at higher rates to fill empty staff slots.Preston County delegates have said this will help staffing shortages there.
It passed the Senate 34-0 and returned to the House.
