April 22,2014

 

Folks,

 

The Maryland General Assembly passed a much-publicized, roughly 2 year moratorium on deep shale gas recovery using horizontal fracturing techniques during this year's legislative session that ended on April 13.  The bill will be forwarded to the Governor for signature/enactment.  It is widely viewed as veto-proof, given the voting margins which led to its passage (including support from our local representatives, Senator Edwards and Delegate Beitzel).

 

The bill's 3 basic provisions  are:

1. Require the MD Department of Environment (MDE) to adopt final regulations by 1 Oct. 2016, 
2. Preclude these regulations from becoming effective until 1 Oct. 2017, 
3. Also preclude MDE from issuing drilling permits until 1 Oct 2017.

Despite broad-based support in the end, many---particularly a broad coalition of Non-Government Organizations (NGO's)---were disappointed that the final bill did not preserve key features of the bill originally passed in the House; a 3-year moratorium and a mandated study and review of public health impacts/risks.
  

In this context, we will keep you apprised of developments along at least 2 fronts:

• state efforts to reach a final set  final of regulations amidst controversy about both being overly-constraining and inadequately covering certain risks
• local pressures and possible initiatives to fill perceived gaps in the state's work, at least to date, in addressing public health impacts/risks

There were several other bills submitted this year, all of which died in their assigned House and/or Senate committees which proposed:

1. Outright prohibitions on fracking and wastewater handling in the State, 
2. Constraints on the handling of solid waste and wastewater from the fracking process, 
3. Provisions for disclosing fracking chemical and establishing specified fees, penalties, etc., 
4. The imposition of strict damage liability requirements on industry, 
5. The levying of a state severance tax on recovered natural gas and creation of a natural gas operations "impact account". Senator Edwards sponsored this bill.

Thanks go to John Quilty for this report and you can contact him directly for more information. 

 

Cheers,