New Law Blocks Anti-Drilling Ballot Measures in Ohio

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Enough is enough. As MDN reported last June, anti-drilling zealots in Youngstown, OH filed a petition to place a frack ban resolution on the November ballot–for the 6th time (see Brain Dead: Youngstown Antis File Petition for 6th Frack Ban Vote). The petition held up, there were just enough signatures. And once again in November, as the five times that preceded it, Youngstown voters rejected the misnamed, so-called Community Bill of Rights ballot measure–yet another humiliating defeat for the PA-based Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) which is behind the measure (see Youngstown, OH Frack Ban Ballot Measure Defeated for 6th Time). The measure was voted down by an 11-point margin (i.e. landslide against it). The radicals of the CELDF are behind most, if not all, such measures throughout Ohio and Pennsylvania (see our CELDF stories here). Like the six times before, recalcitrant antis say they will try yet again, and keep trying. Except in Ohio they now won’t get that chance. Ohio legislators are heard the pleas of local municipalities that are spending big money (in legal fees) dealing with these patently illegal ballot measures. So the legislature passed House Bill (HB) 463 in December (full copy below)–a measure that says you can’t add a ballot measure (like home rule for oil and gas regulation) that expressly contradicts state law. Gov. John Kasich signed the bill on Jan. 4–meaning no more Youngstown ballot “Community Bill of Rights” measures on the ballot…

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