ALBANY – Advocates of opening up New York State to the practice of shale gas mining known as hydrofracturing – or ‘fracking’ – are taking the offensive. On Wednesday, several groups warned that the efforts to undermine fracking by local governments expose taxpayers to “legal quicksand” in the form of costly litigation and lost jobs.
A proponent of fracking said during a conference call on Wednesday that local municipalities will be on the hook for pretty significant legal bills in defending their statutes. The conference call was set up by the pro-fracking group Clean Growth Now.
Fracking opponents have won in lower court decisions that are now being appealed. Supporters of fracking say the legal question comes down to whether the state or local governments have the power to regulating mining, and point to a decision by the New York State Court of Appeals permitting incidental zoning regulation but not the kind of overarching bans already enacted by some municipalities in the eastern part of the state.
Fracking opponents say they are confident the bans will be upheld by appellate courts, though they admit the rulings in their favor were the first round of a protracted fracking fight.
Beside the challenge to the legality of the local laws and the cost of defending them, the fracking supporters also said that the bans hurt New York’s economic competitiveness.
The Department of Environmental Conservation has set no deadline for a decision on permitting hydrofracking, and protesters came to agency headquarters in downtown Albany Tuesday to protest. The head of the DEC will be in Jamestown on April 24 as part of a Jackson Center seminar on fracking.
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