Rep. John Maher (R-Allegheny), Majority Chair of the House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee, announced Wednesday the Committee will be reviewing the final DEP Chapter 78 and 78a oil and gas drilling regulations at its next meeting.

Since this meeting, the Committee has scheduled a meeting for March 23 starting at 9:30 in Room B-31 Main Capitol.

At Wednesday’s meeting, Rep. Maher asked members to provide him with comments and questions on the regulation prior to the meeting.

Under the Regulatory Review Act, the Committee can offer comments to the Independent Regulatory Review Commission or choose to report out a concurrent House-Senate resolution blocking their implementation.

The Senate and House must pass the resolution and present it to the Governor for his action.  The resolution can be signed or vetoed by the Governor.  If he signs it, the regulation is dead and DEP would have to start over.

Rep. Maher has been a critic of the process used by DEP to develop the regulations and voted against them at the February Environmental Quality Board meeting.

The IRRC is scheduled to meet on the drilling regulations April 21.

The Committee also reported out two bills--

-- House Bill 577 (Moul-R-Adams) authorizing designees with proxy voting rights for certain members of Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin (sponsor summary); and

-- House Bill 1895 (Metzgar-R-Bedford) changing the members of the Underground Storage Tank Indemnification Board (sponsor summary).  The Committee amended the bill to require the Senate and House to appoint 4 members of the 10 member board leaving the Governor to appoint 2 members and make it look like Senate Bill 1142 (Yaw-R-Lycoming) reported out of the Senate Banking and Insurance Committee Tuesday.

Rep. John Maher (R-Allegheny) serves as Majority Chair of the House Environmental Committee and can be contacted by sending email to: jmaher@pahousegop.com.  Rep. Greg Vitali (D-Delaware) serves as Minority Chair and can be contacted by sending email to: gvitali@pahouse.net.

3/21/2016