Our Bills Passed – Help us encourage the Governor to sign them into law!

IT WORKED!  Thanks to those of you who left messages for or emailed Senators to pass HB 4088.  It passed with only one “no” vote in the Senate. It did not have any “no” votes at all in the House.   (In fact that one “no” vote on that bill was the only “no” vote on any of our four orphaned wells bills that passed!  It took a couple years, but four big time wins for us.)

Now we need to make sure that the Governor signs that bill and two others he has not signed yet so they finally become law.  He already signed HB 4091 using expedited permit money to plug orphaned wells. We have no reason to think he will not sign these next three, but he surprised us last year when he vetoed the severance tax plugging money bill.

PLEASE CONTACT THE GOVERNOR, OR BETTER YET, PLEASE CALL HIS OFFICE AND LEAVE A MESSAGE. Here is a template:

“Governor Justice,

Thank you for signing HB 4091, the expedited permit bill into law, providing some money to plug orphaned wells on surface owners. Please also sign into law three more bills to help surface owners who have orphaned oil and gas wells on their property!  They are HB 4090, HB 4088, and SB 120.  

Only one legislator voted against any of them!

• HB 4090 requires drillers to pay some money to plug orphaned wells using severance tax payments as the way to do it.
• HB 4088 uses money sitting in circuit clerks’ offices that is due to missing or unknown mineral owners who cannot be found for seven years in order to plug orphaned wells.
• SB 120 says that if a driller’s bond is forfeited for not plugging a well, then that bond money has to first be used to plug that well.” 

AND IF YOU ARE ON A ROLL, also tell him:

“And next year please help us pass laws to prevent future oil and gas wells from being orphaned by irresponsible drillers.

Thank you!”

Submit an email to the Governor at https://governor.wv.gov/Pages/SubmitaCommenttotheGovernor.aspx

Call the Governor at 304.558.2000 or 1.888.438.2731