Lawmakers Should Know the Drill
Legislators shaft public by failing to show up for Marcellus shale
meeting
Morgantown Dominion Post
24 December 2010
It’s like someone’s drilling a hole in the ground — and wants to pull
everyone into it with them. Maybe that’s not fair to describe the
Marcellus shale drilling industry in that light. But we are all naive
if we trust our legislators to keep us from blindly falling for the
promise of what lies in the dark depths below our feet. Though our
legislators have been working for years on regulating this industry, at
times it appears they are no closer than they were at the outset. One
of those times occurred last week during a legislative interim session
in Charleston. A subcommittee was scheduled to vote to move a bill on
Marcellus gas well regulation to the full joint Judiciary Committee.
The room was packed with industry types, environmental advocates,
property owners and media. Everyone was interested in a dialogue and
debate, and rationality. Everyone except a dozen legislators, who
failed to show up for the meeting.
The scheduled two-hour session was adjourned within minutes when it was
apparent the panel lacked a quorum of state senators.
We realize there may be some good excuses why eight of the 11 state
senators on the subcommittee were noshows. Admittedly, we did not ask
the absent senators to explain themselves. Nor did we ask the four
delegates, who were missing, their reasons, either.
But we figured they owed everyone an explanation.
More than a week later Sen. Clark Barnes, RRandolph; Sen. Dan Foster,
D-Kanawha; Sen. William Laird, D-Fayette; Sen. Joseph Minard,
D-Harrison; Sen. Jack Yost, D-Brooke; Sen. Frank Deem, R-Wood; Sen.
Jeff Kessler (an ex officio member); and Sen. Mike Hall, RPutnam, are
still mum.
Nor have we heard anything from Delegate William Wooton, D-Raleigh;
Delegate Robert Schadler, R-Mineral; Delegate Patti Eagloski Schoen,
R-Putnam; and Delegate Tim Manchin, D-Marion (a nonvoting member).
The ascendancy of the issue of Marcellus shale drilling is not the
result of media or even the threat it poses, but of a very public, very
loud debate ... outside Charleston.
The big push for public regulation of Marcellus shale drilling is not
about isolated damage to a stream or someone’s property, either, but
the collective costs we may all face. Widespread destruction of our
waterways and land, despite the dividends, royalties or severance
taxes, is wrong. It could cost our state dearly.
Regulated drilling will cost taxpayers less, and there’s a good chance
the state may come out ahead, if our legislators do what’s right.
If they don’t, there’s a good chance we may end up in that hole, yet.