Committee advances bill to create state forest-carbon registry after amendments to penalties and deadlines

A committee substitute for Senate Bill 730 that would establish a forest carbon registry in West Virginia was agreed to in amended form and reported to the full Senate with a recommendation that it pass; the motion included a double reference and the bill will be referred to the Committee on Finance.

The substitute would require a record for properties encumbered by carbon-offset agreements or projects to include a GIS shapefile delineating boundaries, names and contact information for landowners and purchasers, and the date of execution or project initiation. The Division of Forestry would be authorized to adopt rules and set reasonable fees to administer the registry. The substitute originally required both purchaser and landowner to file agreements with the registry and county courthouses and imposed a $5,000 civil penalty for a first offense, with permanent suspension of a West Virginia business license for subsequent offenses.

Committee testimony raised concerns about the original filing, penalty and disclosure language. A Division representative said an initial $5,000 flat penalty would be burdensome for small landowners and suggested penalties scaled to acreage. Dwayne O'Dell of the West Virginia Farm Bureau testified the bill's requirement to disclose contractual "terms" could force disclosure of negotiated financial terms and that mandatory release of those terms would be an unusual intrusion compared with other recorded instruments. O'Dell said many carbon agreements are already public and that the proposed filing and fee structure could unduly burden smaller landowners.

Committee members offered and adopted several amendments. Senator Marion proposed a conceptual amendment lowering the penalty to $1,000 per offense and removing the provision that would suspend a business license for subsequent violations; that amendment was refined to create a timing structure that would require an initial filing deadline and then a 90-day period before subsequent violations could be assessed. The vice chair offered and later reformed an amendment to change the effective date for filing legacy agreements from July 1, 2035, to July 1, 2027, and to make purchasers, rather than both purchaser and landowner, responsible for filing agreements that existed on the bill's effective date; the committee adopted that amendment as reformed.

After the amendments were adopted by voice votes, the committee agreed to the amended substitute and voted to report it to the full Senate with the recommendation that it pass; under the motion the bill will next be considered by the Committee on Finance.

Committee members said further work is expected in Finance to tighten definitions (for example, "landowner" and "terms") and the penalty structure before the bill would be considered for final passage.