Below are the results of last week’s poll on exporting shale gas to other countries.
Should the U.S. allow shale gas to be exported?
Yes (54%, 119 Votes)
No (39%, 86 Votes)
Not sure (7%, 16 Votes)
Total Voters: 221
Should local municipalities have the power to ban gas drilling?
New York, as many of you know, has not allowed horizontal hydraulic fracturing (drilling for Marcellus and Utica Shale gas) to be begin. The state is in the “final” steps of issuing new drilling regulations. The best guess is that drilling will start sometime next year, likely within the first 3-6 months of 2012. In anticipation that drilling will begin, some townships in New York have decided to preemptively ban drilling within their borders. Problem is, there’s a couple of sentences in New York State law dating back to the 1980s that specifically disallows local municipalities from doing just that when it comes to the oil and gas industry. That is, state law supersedes local municipal laws, and any local law passed to ban drilling is technically illegal.
Local townships point out that they are allowed to restrict all other types of industrial business activity with zoning regulations, so oil and gas should be no different. Joe Martens, the new Commissioner of the NY Department of Environmental Conservation, the agency charged with regulating oil and gas drilling in the state, has the flippant attitude, “let the courts decide.” Now it seems they will.
Word of a new lawsuit came this week in Tompkins County. In August, the town of Dryden, NY, a rural bedroom community for Ithaca, NY, passed a law banning hydraulic fracturing. Anschutz Exploration has said they’re going to challenge it in court to have it overturned (see MDN’s coverage here). Who knows how long it will take to resolve this? Anschutz hopes it will be a slam dunk, no-brainer. Dryden hopes the court will see it their way. No matter who wins round one, there’s sure to be an appeal and this may ultimately drag out for years. Taxpayers in local municipalities will foot the bill for the legal costs—something not planned-for in their already-stretched budgets.
Pennsylvania allows more leeway with respect to local regulations. Municipalities can, in effect, ban drilling within their borders in PA.
Several municipalities in West Virginia have tried to ban gas drilling, most famously Morgantown, and have found the drilling industry giving them the cold shoulder (i.e., they take their money and jobs elsewhere). Most have reversed their previous bans, and in the case of Morgantown, a judge overturned the ban.
So MDN’s poll question this week wants to know what you think: Should local municipalities have the power to ban gas drilling? Register your vote along the right side of any page on the site.
Below are the most recent “top 5” lists and the calendar of Marcellus related events for the next two weeks.
Happy reading,
Jim Willis, Editor
Read More “MDN Weekly Update – Sept 18, 2011: Municipal Bans on Gas Drilling”
Chevron is the latest large energy company to purchase leases in the Ohio Valley for shale gas drilling. Recently, Hess paid $1.34 billion to acquire acreage in eastern Ohio, and Exxon Mobil subsidiary XTO Energy is now signing up landowners in Belmont County, OH for Utica Shale drilling (
A number of landowners from Belmont County, Ohio made the trip to Wheeling, WV last week to sign leases to allow drilling in the Utica Shale on their property. The leases were signed with XTO Energy, now a subsidiary of Exxon Mobil. The price landowners got for Utica leases rivals the highest prices MDN has heard of for any Marcellus Shale lease, in no small part because of Chesapeake Energy’s recent discovery of natural gas liquids and even oil in the Utica Shale in Ohio.
Should the U.S. allow shale gas to be exported?
If you’re against drilling and desperate to make your case, why tell the truth when a lie will conveniently do? That is, of course, until the lie is exposed.