Clean-Coal Bills Sponsored

By Bill McCarthy

House Bill 89 would designate the surface owner of the land as the owner of the pore space beneath it.

By Bill McCarthy

bmccarthy@wyomingnews.com

CHEYENNE – The House Judiciary Committee voted Monday to sponsor clean-coal legislation, hours after the governor asked lawmakers to make it a priority.

In his State of the State address Monday morning, Gov. Dave Freudenthal said passage of the two bills “will place Wyoming in the vanguard of carbon management.”

House Bill 89 would designate the surface owner of the land as the owner of the pore space – areas where carbon dioxide can be stored – beneath it. Power companies wanting to store – or sequester – carbon dioxide would have to negotiate with the owner of the surface land.

House Bill 90 would set up a regulatory regime for sequestering carbon dioxide under the Department of Environmental Quality and the Oil and Gas Commission.

The committee passed both bills unanimously with few amendments, though several were offered.

“I, for one, am getting quite nervous,” Laurie Goodman, president of the Landowners Association of Wyoming, told the committee as the amendments were being discussed.

The landowners have agreed to put off debate on several difficult issues, such as public domain and condemnation and landowner access to carbon trading markets, she said.

Landowners have been promised that those issues and others will be dealt with in the 2009 General Session, she said. They have been willing to leave those unresolved so the state and industry can get started on the unexplored legal realm of carbon sequestration.

And at the last minute, she said, there are a number of amendments being offered that may have serious legal implications for landowners.

While the committee did not tinker much with the legislation, members said they expect numerous amendments to be offered on the floor of the House.

The bills still have to pass the Senate and be signed by the governor to become law.

“This is a work in progress,” said Rep. Olsen, R-Daniel, a committee member. Lawmakers will be revisiting the legislation in future sessions as well as this one, he said.

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