West Virginia Legislature Considers Gas Trust Fund

West Virginia Senate President Jeff Kessler is leading the drive to create an oil and natural gas trust fund named the “Future Fund” that would support education, economic development or tax relief decades from now, reports the Global Post.  Kessler recently led a group of West Virginia lawmakers to visit North Dakota, where 30 percent of oil and gas tax collections are placed into the state’s Legacy Fund, which cannot be spent until 2017.  Kessler indicated that he would like to present the Future Fund proposal as a constitutional amendment in January 2014, stating that he believes that constitutional protections would lock down the fund from lawmakers and interest groups that would like to spend the money prematurely.