Rep. Andy Nuñez, D-Hatch, agreed to support Ben Lujan last year in his bid to remain speaker of the House in exchange for the chairmanship of the Agriculture and Water Resources Committee.
Nuñez did that because he wanted another shot at passing a bill the oil and gas industry has torpedoed for several years.
Lujan won the leadership battle, Nuñez got his chairmanship and increased clout, and the House, earlier today, passed House Bill 827, which requires oil and gas companies to pay landowners for damage to their property caused by drilling.
Following some amendments that actually earned the bill the endorsement of the Oil and Gas Association, it was approved on a vote of 62-5. It now goes to the Senate for consideration.
“There has been a lot of blood let on both sides, but we’ve come up with a compromise bill that both the cattle growers and the oil and gas industry support,” Nuñez said in a news release.
In fact, oil and gas heavily financed Nuñez’s opponent in the 2006 election in an attempt to stop this legislation from moving forward.
Under the compromise, the bill would protect landowners who don’t own the mineral rights below their land, which is common in
The bill would require the oil and gas industry to notify landowners 30 days prior to any oil and gas operations, to describe the operations, and to propose a surface use and compensation agreement. The landowner then has 20 days to accept, negotiate or reject the offer. If no agreement is reached between the landowner and company, a bond must be posted before operations begin.