By Mike Tony, Charleston Gazette-Mail
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The Senate Judiciary Committee has approved a bill that would change the methodology for valuing producing oil and natural gas wells, but not before fundamentally altering the legislation to allow more latitude for the state Tax Department to reform how it values wells — much to the oil and gas industry’s chagrin.
House Bill 2581 will now go before the Senate Finance Committee.
The judiciary panel signed off on the bill Tuesday afternoon after an 8-7 vote Monday night in favor of deferring consideration of the bill upon a motion to do so by Sen. Patricia Rucker, R-Jefferson, after extensive testimony and debate on the legislation, which had been amended significantly from the previous version to newly direct the state Tax Department to propose rules for approval by a legislative rule-making review committee.
When the committee reconvened Tuesday afternoon, Rucker proposed an amendment that she said was designed to split the difference between the version of the bill that eventually prevailed and the version of the bill that the House of Delegates passed in a 66-34 vote last week despite concerns from members of both parties about the bill’s impact on local government revenues…
