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Ohio speaker: Drilling legislation in the works
By Marc Kovac
COLUMBUS
The Republican leader of the Ohio House expects lawmakers to act in coming months on yet-to-be- introduced legislation affecting gas and oil drilling in the state.
Speaker Bill Batchelder told reporters Tuesday that a bill could be introduced in the next few weeks and finalized by the time lawmakers leave Columbus for the busy summer campaign season.
Among other provisions, the legislation could expand the Ohio Department of Natural Resources — specifically adding more employees to the division that will be dealing with oil and gas drilling and the emerging horizontal hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, industry.
“This is a whole different ball game,” Batchelder said.
Fracking is a process in which water, chemicals and sand are blasted into rocks thousands of feet below the ground to unlock natural gas and oil.
Proponents believe hydraulic fracturing could mean a boost to the state’s economy, with big increases in jobs, investment and energy resources.
Opponents, however, have called for a moratorium on the practice until studies are completed on the potential environmental impact. A series of earthquakes in the Youngstown area that many believe can be traced to an injection well used to dispose of waste fluids from oil and gas production have increased such calls.
Batchelder said that Ohio is ahead of other states in terms of regulations, thanks to legislation passed by lawmakers in recent years.
He also said state officials have been in contact with North Dakota and other areas of the country that have experienced oil and gas booms in recent years to learn how they have handled issues related to the growing industry.
“There’s an awful lot here that we haven’t heard about or dealt with,” Batchelder said. “We’re very fortunate that the other states that are a little bit ahead of us in time are willing to spend time helping us. ... We’re talking now about high- pressure gas-transmission lines; there’s just so many variables here. And we may have to do separate bills.”
Batchelder cautioned that the potential economic impact of fracking is “out the window,” given the steady decline in natural-gas prices.
“Natural gas has just gone in the dumper ... and so we don’t know whether we’ll have fewer drilling rigs than we otherwise would have had,” he said. “It’s going to be a tough question, because, obviously, they have to make business judgments that are totally outside of our purview. That may result in a much different ... situation than what we would have started out with.”
He added, “I can’t tell you that they are necessarily backing off at all. I think right now, they want to find out, by drilling, what’s where and so forth.”
Batchelder did not provide a timetable for action on the legislation, given other bills that lawmakers need to address — a second budget coming from Gov. John Kasich’s office, a citizen-initiated bill concerning dog auctions and other legislation that will have to be dealt with in the next four months.
“We’ll have oil-drilling legislation that will be something that will have to be heard extensively,” Batchelder said. “But we really have to get into that pretty promptly.”