As anticipated, on December 22, West Virginia’s Governor Earl Ray Tomblin signed the Natural Gas Horizontal Wells Control Act, calling it “a milestone piece of legislation and a significant achievement in [West Virginia’s] history.” You can find a summary of the Act in an earlier post but note that this legislation increases the fee for wells from $400 per well to $10,000 for an initial well, and another $5,000 for each additional well placed on a single pad. It also requires the disclosure of fracking additives to the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection.