On March 18, the House Natural Resources Committee heard testimony on Senate Bill 219, which purports to revise the law on oil and gas wells in Ohio. In reality, it’s 87 pages of favors for the oil and gas industry – starting with fracking of Ohio’s state parks and public lands.
If SB 219 passes, every stage of the process to frack public lands would drastically speed up – putting the Ohio Department of Natural Resources on tight deadlines to act quickly on fracking nominations, bids, leases, and permits.
Tell your House Rep: Vote NO on Senate Bill 219
That’s not all. SB 219 also contains multiple provisions vetoed by Gov. DeWine when they were in the state budget bill. These include things like:
- Extending lease renewals to frack public lands from three to five years.
- Giving oil and gas companies more time to pay the state what they owe.
- Giving oil and gas companies. “surface use” of state land – meaning they could frack inside our parks.
Your quick action then helped get DeWine to veto these provisions from the budget bill – but now they are back in SB 219.
Tell your House Rep: Vote NO on Senate Bill 219
As if all that is not enough, SB 219 would also curtail fracking regulations:
- ODNR would be required to expedite fracking permits up to 10 times per company per year.
- Oil and gas companies would no longer be required to get a road use agreement with local governments.
- Oil and gas companies would no longer need a special permit to put overweight trucks on the road.
Then there’s the provision requiring ODNR to prioritize plugging orphan or abandoned wells based on how close they are to frack waste injection wells – not how polluting or dangerous they are. Injection wells are known to leak into other nearby wells -- but that's a problem with injection wells, not orphan wells.
SB 219 is a great deal for the oil and gas industry – and terrible for Ohio citizens.
Tell your House Rep: Vote NO on Senate Bill 219
The links above will take you to a spreadsheet with the emails, phone numbers, and social media of all Ohio legislators. You can use that to contact your own House Representative in any of these ways.
If you don't know who your House Representative is, you can:
- Enter your address here to find out: https://ohiohouse.gov/members/district-map
- Then go to the House Representatives Contact Information spreadsheet to find out how to reach them.
Below is a sample email you can send to your House Representative -- but don't forget to put it into your own words. Let them know why you care about Ohio's state parks and public lands. Tell a personal story if you have one.
Our House Representatives will likely vote on Senate Bill 219 soon. We need to tell them to vote NO.
Thank you for your tireless advocacy for Ohio state parks and public lands.
Cathy Cowan Becker
Board President
Save Ohio Parks
Sample letter:
Representative,
My name is [Your Name], and I live in [Your City]. I am writing to let you know of my strong opposition to Senate Bill 219.
SB 219 purports to revise the law governing oil and gas wells in Ohio – but in reality, it’s 87 pages of favors for the oil and gas industry – starting with fracking Ohio’s state parks and public lands.
If SB 219 passes, every stage of the process to frack public lands would drastically speed up – putting the Ohio Department of Natural Resources on tight deadlines to act quickly on fracking nominations, bids, leases, and permits.
That’s not all. SB 219 also contains multiple provisions vetoed by Gov. DeWine when they were in the state budget bill. These include:
– Extending lease renewals to frack public lands from three to five years.
– Giving oil and gas companies more time to pay the state what they owe
– Giving oil and gas companies. “surface use” of state land – meaning they could frack inside our parks. Gov.
DeWine already vetoed these provisions from the budget bill. Why would we send them to the governor again?
As if all that is not enough, SB 219 would also curtail fracking regulations:
– ODNR would be required to expedite fracking permits up to 10 times per company per year.
– Oil and gas companies would no longer be required to get a road use agreement with local governments.
– Oil and gas companies would no longer need a special permit to put overweight trucks on the road.
Then there’s the provision requiring ODNR to prioritize plugging orphan wells based on how close they are to injection wells – not how polluting or dangerous they are. Injection wells are leaking into orphan wells and production wells, and putting drinking water at risk. That’s a problem with injection wells, which clearly need more regulation.
SB 219 is a great deal for the oil and gas industry – and terrible for Ohio citizens. Please vote NO on SB 219.