CHARLESTON — A  legislative panel left intact a $10,000 permit fee for startup wells but fell short Thursday of producing a full-fledged Marcellus shale bill, leaving in doubt a potential special session in November to regulate the promising industry.

Back-to-back, two-hour sessions in this month’s interims failed to result in an agreed-to bill — a condition Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin imposed for calling a session.

Even so, a co-chairman, Sen. Doug Facemire, D-Braxton, didn’t despair, telling reporters afterward he expects another committee meeting to be called next weekend, provided the 10 members can fit it into their schedules.

Members hail from different districts, ranging from the two panhandles to Greenbrier County, and distance is a hindrance.

“That’s somewhat disappointing,” Facemire said, after the select committee ran out of time.

“But I’ve said from the beginning that we would rather have a good bill (as opposed to) just a bill. I do think we are working toward a good bill that’s going to protect the surface owners and the environment and lets the industry go to work.”

Marcellus shale drilling is viewed as a major economic boon for West Virginia. The Legislature’s failure to come to terms on legislation last winter as the session ended prompted Tomblin to impose an emergency rule in the interim.

The delay didn’t disappoint Sen. Karen Facemyer, R-Jackson, at least for now, depending on what the two committee co-chairs do next.

“What is the rush on this?” she asked, in pleading for the bill to be studied longer, and even put off until the 2012 regular session.

Facemyer failed in her effort to cut in half the proposed permitting fee of $10,000 for the first well on a pad, and $5,000 for all subsequent ones. She preferred a $5,000-$1,000 formula.

Environmental Protection Secretary Randy Huffman agreed that a $5,000 initial well fee is acceptable.

He said the agency needs $2.1 million to fill three office vacancies and hire additional inspectors.

“If we had the money today, the process takes until the end of the year,” he said.

One year from now, Huffman told the panel, the DEP would be in a stronger position to assess the level of funding needed.

“It would just be a really wild guess right now if I were to try to come up with a number for you,” he said.

Facemyer defended the Marcellus industry as the interims meeting came to a close.

“Why are we always assuming they’re the bad guys?” she asked.

Another panelist, Sen. Orphy Klempa, D-Ohio, said regulation is needed now to provide homeowners who don’t own mineral rights some level of comfort.

Besides, he said, the Legislature has been looking at the Marcellus industry for at least two years.

What’s more, he said, the high severance taxes the industry will pay aren’t going to discourage drilling.

“There’s money to be made in this,” he said.

“I’m here to tell you, there’s a lot of good operators, but this industry is going to be judged by the worst operator. It only takes one not overseen correctly that creates a scenario.”

Only a handful of amendments remains to be resolved, but one of them is considered a key element — the procedure for reimbursing landowners for damage done by drilling outfits.

Others include the requirements for inspectors and the regulation covering drilling through caverns.

Even if the select committee sends out a bill, Facemire said the leadership in both houses must be consulted to make sure their respective chambers can support it.

Environmental and citizen groups remained dismayed over the committee’s decision to trim from 1,000 feet to 625 feet a proposed buffer zone from the middle of a well pad to a dwelling occupied by humans or animals.

Lawmakers should have considered the noise impact and air pollution before abandoning the 1,000-foot zone, said Julie Archer, a spokesperson for West Virginia-Citizen Action Group.

“Really, a landowner doesn’t even have the assurance it’s going to be 625 feet away, because they (drillers) can get a variance,” she said.

“And there’s some real question whether 1,000 feet is enough.”

Existing law insists on a 200-foot separation.

“We know of people whose homes are 650 feet away, and they can’t sleep at night,” Archer said.

“It would be one thing if they came in and drilled a well, and in a month or six weeks, they were out of there, but that just goes on and on and on for a year or more.”

Archer said WV-CAG is interested in how the bill will address the negotiations between a landowner and a drilling firm when property damage occurs.

Her group and others would like to see a $25,000 bond posted and mandatory negotiations.

For now, the bill makes such negotiations permissible but not required, she pointed out.

“Companies say they will make an effort, but there are a lot of them that don’t,” Archer said.

“If they’re not going to make them do it, they’re just not going to do it.”

— E-mail: mannix@register-herald.com