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The West Virginia Environmental Council and the West Virginia Rivers Coalition rallied successfully to help defeat House Bill 5018 and Senate Bill 688, two especially controversial pieces of legislation.

The industry-backed HB 5018 would have barred use of community air monitoring data in third-party lawsuits or state enforcement action, drawing criticism it would favor polluters by cutting off key use of citizen-submitted data in areas without state air quality monitors — like all the state’s southern coalfield counties.

SB 688 would have allowed Department of Commerce agencies to bypass competitive bidding for contracts to manage state forests to prevent forest fires when they support economic development projects. Conservationists feared SB 688 was too vague and could have opened public lands to timbering and profit-driven development.

But perennial legislative priorities for West Virginia environmental activists like boosting funding to cover the cost of remediating gas and oil wells and establishing community solar in the state failed again.

Orphaned well legislation fails

SB 532, the Orphaned Gas and Well Prevention Act of 2024 backed by environmental groups, would have required operators of new wells to either post a single-well, full-cost plugging bond or start at the beginning of production to set aside money in an interest-bearing account in the state Treasurer’s Office to plug a well at the end of its life.

SB 532 also would have required existing wells that are producing in paying quantities to set aside 15 cents per thousand cubic feet in the Treasurer’s Office to plug the well.

A 2021 Interstate Oil & Gas Compact Commission report on orphaned wells estimated there were over 15,000 of them in West Virginia. Such wells can leak gas, oil and other toxic chemicals into air and water while also emitting climate change-accelerating methane.

SB 532’s failure came despite its bipartisan sponsorship that included the chair of the committee it stalled in, Energy, Industry and Mining Committee Chairman Randy Smith, R-Tucker.

“It’s regrettable another year goes by with no progress to prevent worsening the problem of thousands of leaking orphan oil and gas wells in our state,� West Virginia Rivers Coalition executive director Angie Rosser said. “We need to learn from mistakes of the past, and not keep shifting industry’s responsibility to clean up their own messes to the taxpayers.�

Community solar goes unadopted again

Also failing was SB 638, which would have created a pilot community solar program in which subscribers could buy interest in a solar facility and use credits against their electric utility costs. Community solar is a setup in which customers receive solar energy without having to install their own system, typically benefiting from energy generated at an offsite array.

As of December 2021, 22 states had policies supporting community solar, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

Experts say community solar saves residential consumers about 10% in electricity costs. Proponents say it would open up affordable renewable electricity to low- and moderate-income customers and extend the benefits of solar to people who are unable or unwilling to have solar arrays installed where they live.

“Our lawmakers’ lack of support for solar energy hinders West Virginia’s progress toward a comprehensive plan to diversify energy development, leaving West Virginia trailing in the transition to renewable energy,� Stellato said. “As rising utility costs from fossil fuel energy resources continue to impact communities, the urgency to adopt community solar is even more apparent.�

Another bill backed heavily by the Environmental Council and other activist groups was HB 5422, which would have required the state Public Service Commission to adopt a rule mandating electric utilities to provide full retail credit to customers who generate their own electricity delivered to their utility under a net metering arrangement.

In net metering, a residential customer owns or leases and operates an energy resource, often solar, connected on their side of the utility meter.

Supporters of net metering say it cuts back on straining distribution systems and encourages economic and environmental benefits through customers lowering future electric bills by exporting power to the grid.

But HB 5422 failed to advance out of the House Energy and Manufacturing Committee, which instead approved HB 5018 and HB 5076. The latter bill, which also eventually failed, would have prohibited state code requiring wells presumed to be abandoned to be plugged promptly by the operator to be used as a cause of legal action by any person on their own behalf or in the interests of others.

For now, environmentalists have another year of playing defense and fighting for more to look forward to.

“We encourage you to continue to amplify YOUR viewpoints to your representatives and push for legislation to take us into the 21st century, like economic and energy policies that benefit our working people AND our environment,� the Environmental Council told supporters on its website on March 1 — after the failure of its top legislative priorities for the session had become clear.