NY’s top court says towns can ban fracking

 In its majority opinion, the Court stated,  “We are asked in these two appeals whether towns may ban oil and gas production activities, including hydrofracking, within municipal boundaries through the adoption of local zoning laws,” Associate Judge Victoria Graffeo wrote in the majority opinion. “We conclude that they may because the supersession clause in the statewide Oil, Gas and Solution Mining Law (OGSML) does not preempt the home rule authority vested in municipalities to regulate land use.”

(Poster’s note:  New York’s municipalities have been awaiting an appellate level decision for three years.  During that time,  municipalities around the State have been banning “oil and gas production activities”  or they have been reluctant to do so in the face of threatened lawsuits.  Although this decision is open to  appeal,  all  New Yorkers, no matter their stance on fracking,  should celebrate this affirmation of local control.  Read the Court’s opinion here.)

https://gasvets.org/2014/06/30/612/

Residents in Colorado Town File Class-Action Lawsuit Against State and Governor to Uphold Fracking Ban

“While the suit centers on fracking, it seeks to protect the citizens’ right to self-governance under the Community Bill of Rights. The residents allege that the Colorado Oil and Gas Act and the industry’s enforcement of it violate that right to local self-government under the U.S. Constitution….  ‘This class action lawsuit is merely the first of many by people across the United States whose constitutional rights to govern their own communities are routinely violated by state governments working in concert with the corporations that they ostensibly regulate,’ said Thomas Linzey, Esq., executive director of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, which helped craft Lafayette’s Community Bill of Rights.”    (Read more….)

https://gasvets.org/2014/06/11/592/