Posted on 07/02/2014 3:38:04 PM PDT by Lorianne
New York state's top court ruled on Monday that towns have the authority to ban gas drilling within their borders, giving a boost to opponents of the drilling method known as fracking.
The Court of Appeals in a 5-2 decision upheld drilling bans in the Ithaca suburb of Dryden and in Middlefield, near Cooperstown, saying the laws were extensions of the towns' zoning authority.
Drilling company Norse Energy USA and an upstate dairy farmer separately sued the towns, claiming the bans violated a law designed to create uniform statewide regulations on the oil and gas industry.
The court disagreed, saying the law was designed to bar only local ordinances that could impede the state's ability to regulate drilling activities.
"Plainly, the zoning laws in these cases are directed at regulating land use generally and do not attempt to govern the details, procedures or operations of the oil and gas industries,'' Judge Victoria Graffeo wrote for the court.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
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Parts of N Y State have significant shale gas deposits. This court ruling lets selfish not in my back yard enviro nuts keep the rest of NY and surrounding states from benefiting from abundant, clean & reasonably priced energy. A lot of the US north east still heats with fuel oil and that is more expensive, plus the furnaces are often older less efficient models.
Unmentioned, is whether the town can allow it if the state refuses to?
What's up with that?
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