Thursday, February 9, 2012
Idaho Legislature House Committee Passes Bill Stripping Local Authority on Gas Drilling
Posted by George Prentice on Thu, Feb 9, 2012 at 5:39 PM
Following a full afternoon of testimony, the House Resources and Conservation Committee passed a package of gas exploration legislation Thursday afternoon, including a dilution of local controls. The vote was unanimous.
Suzanne Budge, executive director of the Idaho Petroleum Council, referred lawmakers to today's Idaho Statesman, which featured a re-print of a Wall Street Journal report, offering a positive spin to the oil and gas industry.
"This is a very exciting development," said Budge, referring to Idaho's burgeoning gas exploration industry, which has its eyes on Payette and Washington county farmlands.
But Budge made no mention of Boise Weekly's current report (BW, News, "Idaho's Gasland Rules Debated," Feb. 8, 2011), which includes concerns from Washington County residents about one of the Petroleum Council's measures that would give primacy on well permits to the state, stripping authority from county or local governments.
"Please don't take away our ability to determine what our citizens want," Washington County resident Bob Barber pleaded before the committee.
Tony Edmondson, a former Washington County and Planning and Zoning Commissioner and Weiser Councilman, said he found the legislation "troubling."
"The devil is in the details," said Edmondson. "And that's what we're good at in the local level."
Rancher and Washington County landowner Robert Patrick said he was neither an environmentalist nor what he called "one of those green people."
"I'm just a standard issue Republican," said Patrick. "I find it appalling that Idaho would squelch the rights of its citizens at the local level."
Even a representative of the Idaho chapter of the American Planning Association, which was involved in the bill-writing process, was troubled by its eventual language.
"Yes, a bad bill got better, but you should really have the Governance Committee review this before you pass it," said Jon Norstog of the APA. "This bill is like a chocolate anchovy surprise. The chocolate is the development of our natural resources. But the anchovy surprise is this limitation on our local land use."
But in the end, the committee voted 16-0 to pass the legislation, sending it to the full House for consideration. Resources and Conservation Committee Chairman John Stevenson of Rupert will be its sponsor.
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