Towns that Ban Fracking Could be Bankrupted by Takings Lawsuits
New York townships that recently won the right to outright ban shale drilling with a 3-2 majority vote by a town board may want to rethink their ill-advised votes. Due to a tip from a sharp MDN reader, we bring you a press release from the National Association of Royalty Owners (NARO) about recent court decisions in Colorado. Similar to the New York case, some municipalities in CO have attempted outright bans of fracking–and those cases, contrary to what happened in NY–are being lost. (Certainly not the first time NY has been out of step on important issues.) One study mentioned in the NARO announcement says that bans and moratoria in Boulder County, CO could result in more than one billion dollars of “takings” lawsuits by landowners. In other words, the lawsuits will bankrupt the towns and villages stupid enough to enact a ban. Are you listening Dryden and Middlefield? You won round one in NY–but the battle is far from over and taxpayers in your towns may one day rue your decision to act foolishly to ban fracking…
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Yesterday MDN wrote a summary and interpretation of an article appearing in the Harrisburg Patriot-News about the recent court decision known as EQT Production v. Opatkiewicz, et al (see 
Yesterday the 70,000-member Joint Landowners Coalition of New York (JLCNY) along with several individual landowners filed an appeal in their Article 78 lawsuit that was dismissed by a lower court in Albany County, NY earlier this month. You may recall that the JLCNY sued NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Dept. of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Joe Martens, and state Health Dept. Commissioner Nirav Shah over their refusal to deliver fracking regulations (see 
The seven Pennsylvania townships that sued and ultimately won the right to gut the Act 13 law over zoning regulations (Robinson, Nockamixon, South Fayette, Peters, Cecil, Mount Pleasant, and the Borough of Yardley) don’t want drilling in their townships, but they sure love the money that comes from drilling. In addition to gutting the zoning provisions in the Act 13 law, the towns bridled when the Public Utility Commission (PUC), acting in accordance with the Act 13 law, withheld money from four of the seven towns for their anti-drilling ordinances that violate state oil and gas drilling law. Yesterday the court said the PUC couldn’t do that anymore–further gutting Act 13. However, three other outstanding issues about Act 13 were decided in favor of the drilling industry, including the so-called doctor “gag rule”…
New Yorkers continue to react to the dismissal of a court case brought by the 70,000-member Joint Landowners Coalition of New York (JLCNY) and Norse Energy against state officials to force them to release six-year-delayed fracking regulations (see 