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Dec. 15, 2011
A local organization that has advocated for making more information available to land-owners who wish to lease their property for energy development announced this week it would ask western Maryland’s Annapolis delegation to sponsor a “Fair Energy-Leasing Act” in the upcoming session of the Maryland General Assembly.
CitizenShale acting director Natalie Atherton said the organization would present its suggested legislation this Saturday to Sen. George Edwards and Del. Wendell Beitzel at the delegation’s annual pre-legislative public meeting, which is slated to begin at 10 a.m. in Garrett College’s Room 205. The legislators traditionally use the opportunity to discuss proposals for new legislation, and the public is always encouraged to attend.
“Leases are both individual landowners’ and our county’s first line of protection against poor industrial practices that might harm our land, our water, or our economy,” said Atherton.
CitizenShale’s proposed legislation would require licenses for leasing agents and “land men” who represent the many out-of-state energy corporations that have, since 2006, negotiated leases in Garrett and Allegany counties. The bulk of the leasing activity has been for shale gas extraction, which has not yet occurred in Maryland, but Atherton noted that other forms of industrial energy development, such as wind-power, raise many of the same land-use and consumer protection issues.
All such leases, as well as the outright purchase of mineral rights, are the foundation of energy development in Maryland – including shale gas extraction, should it occur.
Edwards and Beitzel have in the past sponsored bills dealing with gas leasing. The issue has also caught the attention in the last year of Maryland Attorney General Douglas Gansler, whose office has issued two “public information notices” to assist lessors, most recently in October.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
The organization’s proposal follows a public meeting it sponsored last Thursday at which a Garrett County Board of Realtors initiative for a state gas lease registry was introduced. Roughly 60 people attended the event at Garrett College, where a PowerPoint presentation prepared by the board was shown.
In November, the realtor board petitioned a governor-appointed commission studying shale gas development for a lease registry that would require all holders of leases to register them with the state. The lease registry would provide a way for buyers and sellers of real estate to easily learn details on mineral leases held on land adjacent to or near properties offered for sale.
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