Consensus on Gas Royalties
"I'm aware of the problem," Cuccinelli, a Republican and former state senator who sponsored a bill changing Virginia's eminent domain statute, said in an interview Thursday.
"It strikes a sensitive nerve for me because of the property rights issue, and the fact that government is essentially sitting on citizens' money," he said.
"We intend to pursue that informationally to determine what's going on so we can give the best, aggressive advice that we can to the governor, and to the agencies involved, to get that money to the people whose property it is," Cuccinelli said.
Gov. Bob McDonnell said he was unaware of the natural gas royalties accumulating in escrow, or the legislation aimed at releasing the funds. But he's interested, he said Thursday in an interview at a legislative gala sponsored by Southwest Virginia localities.
"Any money that's sitting around not being used we need to put to work."
Consensus on gas royalties should not mean the government worked this out. Dan Gilbert of Media General News Service, compiled a series of articles explaining the problem of the Virginia Gas and Oil Board and its failure to distribute funds that are owned by someone other than the Board itself. While the parties are trying to come to a consensus, the government’s comments that “any money that’s sitting around not being used we need to put to work” hopefully does not mean that the government intends to somehow keep it or find a way of keeping those funds to the detriment of private individuals.
