Lawmakers Weigh Effects of Shale Center Bill
Morgantown Dominion Post
25 July 2012
By David Beard
CHARLESTON — Legislators working on a bill to approve WVU’s Shale
Research Center wrestled Tuesday morning with a question posed by
Sen. Ronald Miller, D-Greenbrier: “Are we going to focus on fixing
every center in West Virginia or just this one?”
Miller wasn’t implying there was anything wrong with WVU’s center.
He was simply summarizing their confusion — a simple 2012 session
bill to give the center state backing became another to create
Higher Education Policy Commission (HEPC) oversight over all
centers.
WVU continues its research, and legislators continue to wrestle
with what they want.
Bill Hutchens, WVU’s general counsel and vice president for
corporate and legal affairs, and Bruce Walker, HEPC general
counsel, explained the issues to a joint Finance subcommittee
Tuesday.
Hutchens drafted what became HB 4511, creating the WVU Shale
Research, Education, Policy and Economic Development Center under
the direction and authority of the WVU Board of Governors (BOG).
But the Senate Education Committee expanded the Senate twin, SB
522, calling for the HEPC to draft a rule (subject to legislative
OK) establishing an approval process for all university research
centers and requiring every university governing board to seek
HEPC approval for new research centers.
The Senate amended its version into HB 4511. The two sides never
reached agreement on the differences, so it died the last day of
the session. Members are trying again.
Hutchens said he was OK with the Senate changes at the time, but
learned that faculty balked at the expanded HEPC oversight.
Academic matters typically fall under the BOG and the president,
and faculty feared the HEPC could be approving every project by
every individual researcher.
“They do not think it’s appropriate to go through rule making for
every center,” Hutchens said.
Walker likewise said the HEPC isn’t seeking that kind of
authority, but it’s a legislative policy matter, and if that’s
what legislators want, that’s OK.
Asked why WVU sought the bill to begin with, Hutchens explained
that WVU researchers are already studying aspects of the fracking
industry. But the state’s backing “could give us increased
credibility and cache.”
Hutchens said the whole state would give weight to the center’s
interactions with federal and international agencies — the
equivalents of the National Energy Technology laboratories in
Canada, Mexico, Poland, China and more.
Hutchens told members that if they decide to mandate HEPC
oversight of research centers, faculty would like a chance to help
draft a definition of “research center.” There are already dozens
of them at institutions across the state, of varying sizes and
purposes, and the bill would need to be clear about the scope of
HEPC authority.
To help members make up their minds how far they want to go with
this issue, Walker said he would conduct a survey of how many
centers already exist.
WVU research well
Hutchens said a dream project for the research center was put
on hold by the recent dive in natural gas prices — but he’s
working to get it going again.
WVU wants to work with an operator to drill a horizontal well on
WVU land. It would be a working well, generating money for the
operator. But it would also be a research well, with every bit of
data from the first turn of dirt through drilling and production
and on being shared to advance knowledge in the field.
When gas prices fell, operators cut back their drilling plans.
“Now I’m looking for money to fund the work, from industry and
others,” Hutchens said.