SB 730 West Virginia Senate · 2025 Regular Session

Establishing Forest Carbon Registry

SB 730 establishes a Forest Carbon Registry managed by West Virginia's Division of Forestry to track carbon offset agreements and projects on state forestlands. It requires landowners, developers, and purchasers to register projects within 60 days of agreement, including GIS shapefiles showing property boundaries, and to file existing agreements by July 2027. Non-compliance incurs civil penalties ($2,500 for first offense, $5,000 for second, and business license suspension for repeat violations). The law directly affects entities involved in forest carbon projects, ensuring transparency in land use and carbon credit transactions.

Issues: ✓ Environment

Bill status failed 1 of 4 stages cleared

Introduction

Mar 2025

Committee Review

Floor Vote

Governor

Introduced Mar 10, 2025 Last action Apr 2, 2025

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What changed between versions

Committee Substitute → Committee Substitute for the Committee Substitute · 7 edits

MODERATE

This bill revision clarifies terminology by adding 'forest' to carbon offset definitions and shifts primary recording responsibility from purchasers to developers. It also adds a new deadline for filing existing agreements and modifies penalty structures for non-compliance.

Scope change

The bill now explicitly includes third-party developers as primary responsible parties for recording carbon offset activities, whereas previously purchasers were the main responsible parties.

DEFINITION

Added 'forest' prefix to 'carbon offset agreement' and 'carbon offset project' definitions for clarity.

Added new definition for 'Developer' as a third-party entity that designs and manages forest carbon projects.

REQUIREMENT

Changed recording responsibility from purchasers to developers for agreements involving third parties.

Added requirement for filing a memorandum describing existing forest carbon offset agreements by July 1, 2027.

Added requirement to include tax map and lot number references in registry records.

Changed penalty assessment timeline from 'each 30-day period' to a single '30th day' following the initial deadline.

ENFORCEMENT

Modified penalty structure to include graduated civil penalties ($2,500 for first offense, $5,000 for second) rather than immediate suspension for subsequent offenses.

Floor votes

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Full legislative history

Actions timeline

Total actions

Key actions

Committee

Mar 29, 2025

Upper · Passed

Committee substitute for committee substitute reported

upper

Mar 24, 2025

Committee

To Finance

upper

Mar 24, 2025

Upper · Passed

Committee substitute reported, but first to Finance

upper

Mar 10, 2025

Introduced

Introduced in Senate

upper

1 primary · 2 co-sponsors