Sunday, January 18, 2009

Issues: Full agenda awaits legislators

1/17/2009 - 1/18/0

"Oil and gas drilling: A bill limiting the authority of cities and counties to place regulations on oil and gas development in the future has strong support from the industry and a Jal legislator who believes the state's regulations are already strict enough and more rules will hurt the state's bottom line.

But competing bills would give more entities, not fewer, power over how oil and gas are produced. One would require disclosure of the ownership of mineral rights in cases of split ownership and give surface owners 30 days to negotiate purchasing the rights before they could be leased to a production company. The other would allow municipalities more authority to protect watersheds through bonding requirements.

Prognosis: Mixed. The bill restricting regulation by cities and counties is unlikely to pass." More>>>>

No comments:

Post a Comment