The 2004 Wyoming legislative session was a budget session. Budget sessions take place in even-numbered years and typically last 20 rather than the 38-40 days required for a general session. During a budget session, all bills—except the budget bill—require a two-thirds vote from either the House or the Senate to be introduced for discussion. Consequently, many conservation-oriented bills did not garner enough votes to get onto the floor. Nonetheless, a number of important debates and votes took place during this legislative session.

Pollution permit fees established
"HB 12 was the best conservation bill of the session," said WOC’s Michele Barlow. "It was the result of years and years of work by WOC and by many others."

The bill, which was signed into law by Governor Freudenthal on March 4, 2004, establishes an annual fee of $100 for every active, permitted surface-water point-source discharge in the state. Prior to the passage of this law, a person or company could legally discharge pollution or waste into the state’s waters by simply obtaining a free permit. Although these permits required compliance with specific rules and regulations, no funds were generated to help administer the permit application process. With the recent exponential growth of water discharge permits due to coalbed methane production, it also meant monitoring and enforcement of the permits was inconsistent due to woeful underfunding.

The money raised through the new fee program —roughly $1.6 million over three years—will be used by Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality to monitor and analyze the quality of surface water in the state.

"$100 is a really small fee compared to the fees charged in surrounding states," Barlow says. "But it is something. It provides needed funds to DEQ, and it shifts the burden of paying for the cost of pollution from the taxpayers to the polluters."

The bill passed with no resistance in large part because it was backed by an NPDES (National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System) task force recommendation and sponsored by the Joint Interim Minerals, Business and Economic Development Committee.

The task force, organized by DEQ to look into the issue of water discharge permitting, was made up of representatives from industry, agriculture and the conservation community. This broad-based support guaranteed the bill’s success with minimal debate. The final vote in the Senate was 23-7 and in the House 58-0.

Surface Owners’ protections fail
HB 70/SF 90 was the second attempt in two years to increase protections for private landowners facing oil and gas development on their land. This year’s bill—the result of a study conducted by the Joint Judiciary Interim Committee—never got off the ground after a massive lobbying effort by the minerals industry killed it on the second day of the session.

The need for surface owner protection
Under current law, landowners who do not own their mineral rights have very limited power to negotiate compensation for damages resulting from oil and gas development. The issue came to a head in Wyoming after a number of surface owners experienced problems with road proliferation, downed fences, disturbed livestock, contaminated waterways, erosion, noise, dust, and other problems associated with oil and gas drilling on their property.

Split estates—where the surface owner does not own the rights to the minerals underlying his or her property—are common in Wyoming, so the problem associated with their development is not likely to go away any time soon.

The interim study conducted by the Joint Judiciary Committee on the split-estate issue, which resulted in HB 70, included public meetings and hearings and provided opportunity for input from the governor, industry, landowners, and conservationists.

What was notable, according to Powder River Basin Resource Council’s lobbyist and lead staff on agriculture and trade, Pennie Vance, was industry’s relative quiet during the interim study. "The mineral lobby had a full year just like everyone else to weigh in on this issue," said Vance in a phone interview.

"But they didn’t say much. This made their lobbying really seem like an eleventh hour effort and it took us by surprise…they brought out their heavy hitters. It was fast and furious, and the legislators were hit over the head.

"Legislators were pinned to the wall by industry lobbyists," she concluded. "These were powerful people, professional lobbyists. There was a CEO from Halliburton. Our citizens lobbyists were outgunned frankly."

Oil and gas producers oppose protections
HB 70, and its Senate version SF 90, would have required oil and gas companies to provide a comprehensive plan to surface owners at least 60 days prior to development. It would have required compensation for "reasonable" property damage, including the loss of agricultural production and income, loss of land value or use, and other factors. The bill would have also required the oil and gas companies to post bonds to guarantee payment for any damage the surface owner incurred. Finally, HB 70 would have required companies to reclaim lands impacted by oil and gas development. This bill provided protections already in existence in many oil and gas producing states such as Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and South Dakota.

The bill failed in spite of Governor Freudenthal’s support. On February 9, he gave a speech to the Legislature where he strongly advocated giving landowners more leverage in dealing with developers. "The same national energy economy that fills our coffers could inadvertently turn our state into a water and wildlife wasteland," Freudenthal said in his speech.

But even Freudenthal could not sway the state’s lawmakers in the face of industry opposition. The power of the lobby had its impact, and the bill failed the House vote for introduction 27-32 with one excused.

"The Legislature has spoken," wrote Bill Garland, a rancher from Pavillion, Wyo., in a letter to the editor of the Casper Star-Tribune. "We don’t have the guts to do anything that might upset the oil and gas industry, even debate the split-estate issue openly."

Garland has been described as the "poster child" of split estates. He is finding it hard to operate his ranch in the Wind River Basin because of the dozens of wells that have sprung up in his hayfields. An active supporter of surface owner protections legislation, Garland spoke at the recent Conservation Congress in Pinedale.

A second interim committee has been established to further study the issue.

Moskee Tract purchase denied
The Senate lost a unique opportunity to provide public access to 31,000-acres of undeveloped lands in the Black Hills when it voted 14-16 against SF-12 on the bill’s third reading.

SF-12 would have authorized purchase of Moskee Tract by the state of Wyoming. Located in Crook County in northeastern Wyoming, the land in question is currently owned by the Homestake Mining Company. In addition to providing excellent turkey and white-tail deer habitat, and 14 miles of trout streams, the tract controls access to 140,000 acres of National Forest lands. Private buyers are reportedly interested in purchasing the Moskee Tract, which could lead to subdivision, access closure and the loss of habitat.

SF-12 ultimately failed because of its price tag. The Homestake Mining Company wanted $30 million for the land. The bill originally proposed funding the purchase through the Common School Permanent Fund. Both conservationists and the governor agreed that this source of funding could create an unfortunate precedent for the State Lands Board to seek financial returns on state lands through development that would likely conflict with recreational use. When another source of funding for the Moskee Tract was not agreed upon by legislators, the bill died.

Reclamation and Remediation Study
Senators Mockler and Decaria introduced SF88 that would have required the Joint Minerals Interim Committee to "conduct a study to consider all remediation and reclamation avenues available through federal and state programs, which address the adverse environmental effects from any mineral, industrial, agricultural or domestic use of the land." The bill failed to win introduction with the senate vote of 14-15 with one excused.

The study would have reviewed all existing land remediation programs in the state, including programs run by the DEQ, the Wyoming Oil and Gas Commission, and under the jurisdiction of the State Mining Inspector. The goal of the study was to determine program effectiveness, analyze costs, and eliminate overlap.

The bill would also have created a land trust fund as a source of future revenue for the remediation of land damage. Conservationists supported the bill and will seek to have it reintroduced in the 2005 General Session.