NC fracking commission’s first meeting called off as legality questioned

Amid questions of its legality, the state Oil & Gas Commission postponed its inaugural meeting, which had been scheduled for Wednesday, to give itself time to make sure it is legally above board before it starts conducting state business.

The decision to postpone came Tuesday, the day after The News & Observer reported on the meeting and after another commissioner resigned, leaving three vacancies on the 2-year-old old commission. The function of the Oil & Gas Commission is to review applications for shale gas drilling, commonly referred to as fracking, as well as to maintain and update safety standards for drilling, chemical use and related activities.

Commissioner Jim Womack had organized Wednesday’s meeting at the Lee County governmental complex to consider objections to fracking moratoriums passed in Chatham and Lee counties, and was prepared to hold the meeting without any legal or administrative support from state agencies. On Friday, however, the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality, the state agency designated to coordinate Oil & Gas Commission activities, sent Womack a letter saying he’s not a member of the commission, and noting the the commissioners haven’t been cleared to hold public meetings by the State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement.

Now the commission is not expected to meet until late October or early November to give the state ethics board time to review the Oil & Gas commissioners financial conflict-of-interest disclosures, Womack announced by email. There are no pending permit applications or other pressing business for the commission to consider, but Womack said the commission is required by state law to meet once a quarter.

“We’re in a hurry but we’re not in such a hurry that we want to do something illegal,” Womack said by phone. “I don’t want there to be any gray area here. The last thing in the world we need is to do business and then to have it declared illegal.”

The postponement staves off a conflict between the Oil & Gas Commission and the Democratic administration of Gov. Roy Cooper. All of the commission members have been appointed by former Republican Gov. Pat McCrory and GOP lawmakers. Womack, who was appointed by Senate President pro Tem Phil Berger, has been an outspoken advocate of shale gas exploration.

But because the governor and his legal staff consider the Oil & Gas Commission to be illegally constituted, and because they are lukewarm to shale gas drilling in the state, the commission has not been convened to meet by the state Department of Environmental Quality. North Carolina has a relatively small shale gas reserve under several counties and lacks pipeline infrastructure to move the gas, making the state a low-priority candidate for energy development.

The legal status of the Oil & Gas Commission became uncertain when the N.C. Supreme Court ruled in 2015 the commission was unconstitutional because the legislature had appointed the majority of its members. The legislature changed the Oil & Gas Commission in July 2016 to give the governor the majority of appointments. However, Berger did not reappoint Womack after the panel was reconfigured, leading the Department of Environmental Quality to declare that Womack is not a member of the current commission.

The postponement of the Oil & Gas Commission’s meeting until autumn would give Berger time to reappoint Womack, but Womack said that is not the intention of the delay.

The commission has had three resignations since it was formed last year. Randall Williams, the state’s former Deputy Secretary for Health, became Missouri’s health director in February. Ray Covington recently resigned the Oil & Gas Commission to focus on his job as director of strategic partnerships at the Hunt Institute in Durham. Karen Glaser, a geologist, submitted her resignation Tuesday to the lawmaker who nominated her, House Speaker Tim Moore.

“I got into this because I’m a geologist and I was hoping we’d be doing some oil and energy work,” she said by phone. “It’s not developing, and I decided that it was time to step away.”

The vacancies create one appointment for Gov. Cooper and two for Speaker Moore.

This story was originally published September 19, 2017 at 4:44 PM with the headline "NC fracking commission’s first meeting called off as legality questioned."