In 'Tragic' Decision, Top Ohio Court Takes Away Local Power to Ban Fracking

[RiverLover]

In 'Tragic' Decision, Top Ohio Court Takes Away Local Power to Ban Fracking
2/18/2015


In a blow to anti-fracking campaigners across the state, the Ohio Supreme Court said this week that the authority to regulate oil and gas drilling activities—and therefore, to ban fracking within municipal borders—lies with the state as opposed to cities, towns, or counties.

As the Akron Beacon Journal put it: "The decision takes local control of drilling away from communities and supports the state as the continued main overseer of drilling."

Several Ohio cities, including Athens, Oberlin, and Mansfield, have passed similar ordinances to ban fracking—some as recently as November 2014—that may now be rendered moot by the court's decision.

By a 4-3 vote, the justices ruled (pdf) that the state has "exclusive authority" over shale-extraction activities and that cities and counties can neither ban nor regulate fracking through zoning laws or other restrictions.

The decision came in a case brought by an Akron suburb against Beck Energy Corp., which received a state-required permit from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources in 2011 to drill a traditional well on private property in the northeast city of Munroe Falls. The city sued, saying the company illegally evaded local ordinances.

The state’s top court rejected Munroe Falls' assertion that it was validly exercising 'home rule,' which lets communities enact local rules and regulations as long as they don’t conflict with general state law. The court found Munroe Falls' ordinances amounted to an exercise of 'police power,' not self-government, and conflicted with state regulations first enacted in 2004....

Let’s be clear here," Justice William O’Neill wrote in his dissenting opinion. "The Ohio General Assembly has created a zookeeper to feed the elephant in the living room. What the drilling industry has bought and paid for in campaign contributions they shall receive. The oil and gas industry has gotten its way, and local control of drilling-location decisions has been unceremoniously taken away from the citizens of Ohio."...

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/02/18/tragic-decision-top-ohio-court-takes-away-local-power-ban-fracking

Democracy is Dead.

[postulater]

1. And which party is the anti-Big Gubmint party?

[Panich52]

3. What Iz thinkin

Central guvmint bad. Unless it's Repub. And funded by corporations.

[Romeo.lima333]

2. blame the constitution it sets up federal and state entities it says nothing about towns and

cities - of course it's a lousy decision but we voted in a republican, and he picks republican supreme court judges. you have to vote you cant sit home not vote and then go to court to do what we should have done at the ballot. if there are more republicans then dems voting we'll then we have only ourselves to blame ( that and the constitution)

What the drilling industry has bought and paid for in campaign contributions they shall receive. consider this a very important lesson for next election.

democracy isn't dead, we just had an election and only 1/3 of America voted, it's not dead it's being ignored