Some Options Still Available After OH Court Strikes Down Home Rule
Last week we brought you the good news that the Ohio Supreme Court ruled against local municipalities trying to block Utica Shale drilling by using local zoning ordinances (see OH Supreme Court Strikes Down Home Rule in Gas Drilling Case). In Munroe Falls v Beck Energy (sometimes called Morrison v Beck Energy) the supremes said ONLY the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) has the right, under state law, to control when and where drilling occurs. However, according to at least one energy attorney in the state, there’s still a lot local municipalities can do affect–even control–where and when drilling happens. That’s his claim anyway…
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Along with acquiring Access Midstream (formerly Chesapeake Midstream), Williams has just acquired a brand new lawsuit. Two Bradford County, PA law firms along with a New Jersey law firm on Tuesday filed a RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) lawsuit on behalf of 90 landowners in Bradford County against Chesapeake Energy and Williams Partners (because Williams is now the owner of what was Access Midstream) claiming Chessy and Williams/Access conspired to defraud landowners of royalty money by deducting post-production expenses they had no right to deduct…
Cases before the high courts of both New York and Pennsylvania in the past year have ruled that local municipalities can control oil and gas drilling within their borders–so-called “home rule” statutes. In the case of NY the high court went berserk and said towns can actually ban such drilling, which of course strips away private property rights guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution. In PA it was a little better, but not much. PA’s high court gutted provisions in the state’s Act 13 law making for a crazy-quilt patchwork of local zoning regulations that PA’s drillers must now navigate through. One state’s high court, however, has gotten it right. Yesterday the Ohio Supreme Court issued its long awaited ruling in the Munroe Falls v Beck Energy case (for background, see 
MDN has the low-down on proposed new federal legislation we first told you about yesterday, the Defense of Property Rights Act (see 
In 2010, activities of the anti-drilling group Gas Drilling Awareness Coalition, Inc. (GDAC) of Luzerne County, PA (Wilkes-Barre area) caught the attention of the Institute of Terrorism Research and Response (ITRR) Foundation, a company contracted by Pennsylvania’s Department of Homeland Security to monitor potential threats in the Keystone State. The ITRR Foundation put GDAC’s name on a list of organizations to keep an eye on–a so-called “terrorist watch list”–which lists potential threats against “critical infrastructure” in the state. The list with GDAC’s name was circulated to law enforcement agencies and to the drilling industry as well. When word of their inclusion on the list leaked, GDAC huffed and puffed and sued. Lo these 4+ years later, it appears they’ve won that lawsuit and the right to be permanently kept off the list…
It’s interesting to MDN that several of the seven Pennsylvania towns that sued the state over the Act 13 law and its zoning provisions–presumably because they didn’t want any Marcellus drilling in their borders–have done a 180 degree turnabout. It happened first in Robinson Township (Washington County), PA–the very township whose name is forever (shamefully) emblazoned on the case, which is called “Robinson v Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.” Voters in Robinson tossed their anti-drilling leaders out of office (see