WEST virginia Legislature

2018 regular session

Introduced

House Bill 4432

By Delegates Statler, Anderson and Harshbarger

[Introduced February 5, 2018; Referred
to the Committee on Government Organization then Finance.]

A BILL to amend the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, by adding thereto a new section, designated §5A-2A-5, relating to requiring fifty percent of state vehicles use compressed natural gas, liquified natural gas or propane by December 31, 2025.

Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:

ARTICLE 2A. USE OF ALTERNATIVE FUELS IN STATE-OWNED VEHICLES.

§5A-2A-5.  Use of natural gas and propane in fleet vehicles; conversion and purchase.

(a) West Virginia is the ninth-largest natural gas-producing state in the nation, largely because of shale gas production. It has been reported that natural gas production from shale wells surpassed the production from all other natural gas wells in the state for the first time in 2011, and, by 2014, annual production exceeded one trillion cubic feet for the first time. In 2015, shale wells accounted for almost nine tenths of the state's natural gas production, and the state's shale gas reserves exceeded nineteen trillion cubic feet. Additional natural gas resources exist in West Virginia's conventional natural gas fields and in the state's many coal fields as coalbed methane.

(b) West Virginia’s future is natural gas. To secure that future and to more efficiently use the abundance of natural gas within the state, the secretary is directed that fifty percent of all vehicles that are used by state agencies use compressed natural gas, liquified natural gas or propane by December 31, 2025, in accordance with the following time table:

(1) By December 31, 2019, ten percent.

(2) By December 31, 2020, fifteen percent.

(3) By December 31, 2021, twenty percent.

(4) By December 31, 2022, twenty-five percent.

(5) By December 31, 2023, thirty-five percent.

(6) By December 31, 2024, forty percent.

(7) By December 31, 2025, fifty percent.

This may be accomplished by either converting presently owned vehicles and/or purchasing new vehicles, whichever is more cost-effective during the affected year.

NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to require fifty percent of state vehicles use compressed natural gas, liquified natural gas or propane by December 31, 2025.

Strike-throughs indicate language that would be stricken from a heading or the present law and underscoring indicates new language that would be added.