New York High Court Says Home Rule Fracking Bans Are Legal - What Effect Could it Have in Ohio?

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New York ruling is a painful
loss for the oil & gas industry
From Village Voice:
Huge news this morning for shale-gas drilling skeptics: the highest court in New York state ruled that towns have the authority to ban oil and gas companies from operating within city limits.

Deborah Goldberg, the lawyer who argued on behalf of the town of Dryden, New York, tells the Voice, will have a "huge impact here in New York state and may very well influence similar efforts around the country." 
In 2011, residents of Dryden passed a zoning ordinance prohibiting oil and gas drilling; Six weekes later Anschutz Exploration Corporation sued the town, arguing that only the state had the authority to make a decision like that.

Dryden, one of two respondents in this case, was the first town in New York to ban fracking. More than 170 towns and cities in New York have since joined them, in absence of any significant action to regulate fracking at the state level. There has been a moratorium on the practice since the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation initiated a review of high-volume hydraulic fracturing in 2008; the New York State Department of Health began its own review in 2012. Governor Andrew Cuomo has said he will wait for the Department of Health to rule on the practice before acting.
You can read the whole article by clicking here.

The Ohio Supreme Court has yet to rule in a similar case in this state.  Will the New York ruling have an effect on the decision in Beck Energy vs. Munroe Falls?  We will have to wait and see.

Here is the full decision in the New York case, if you are inclined to read it...


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