Regulations: Lawmakers should get out of the way
Lawmakers must remember two hard-learned lessons when considering legislative methods for facilitating the oil and natural gas industry in West Virginia: More of the money earned from what is pulled out of the ground in West Virginia must STAY in West Virginia; and when government tries too hard to get its paws all over an industry, that industry falters.
Perhaps state Senate President Mitch Carmichael, R-Jackson, has at least the second part of that lesson in mind when he says “There’s no reason why this industry can’t be a catalyst to reenergize West Virginia’s economy. This is our time to make reasonable accommodations for the industry.”
House Judiciary Committee Vice Chairman Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay, plans to introduce a bill this week that would address one of the major concerns in a regulatory environment so burdensome it still hampers business in the Mountain State. The bill would put the Department of Environmental Protection’s “enforcement resources where the actual problem is,” with regard to the Aboveground Storage Tank Act that has spread the DEP so thin it cannot get any real work done.
“At the moment, we have DEP inspecting tanks which are miles away from a public water supply,” Hanshaw said. “They contain nothing but water and a brine solution. Those are not the things that the people that wrote the Aboveground Storage Tank Act intended the DEP to be out there doing. They intended the DEP to be looking at tanks that actually pose a threat to public health and safety and the public water supply.”
Storage tank regulations are just one example of the kinds of regulations that need another look if West Virginia is going to attract the kinds of businesses and industries that will help our economy transition and grow, but they are a good start. Of course, lawmakers and industry must still work together to make sure both the health of our people and our environment are treated responsibly . That is another lesson Mountain State residents have learned from the extraction industries that have sustained us.
But true cooperation, and a willingness by lawmakers to simply get out of the way sometimes, will be essential if we are to take advantage of the incredible wealth and opportunity that still lies deep below our feet without repeating the mistakes of the past.