The Emergency Rules represent the Tomblin Administration's analytical, balanced approach to adding layered regulation - over and above long-standing law - as a bridge to future acts of the West Virginia Legislature. By this approach, the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection is using its inherent police power to fill perceived regulatory voids and, at the same time, balancing the public's interest in continued economic development currently being fueled by the natural gas/ shale segment of our economy. 

Click here to view the Emergency Rules as filed today, Aug. 22, 2011.