The Lenape Resources lawsuit against the Town of Avon is accompanied by a first-class summary demonstrating the “home rule” campaign sponsored by the Park Foundation is mightily mistaken.

Our earlier post on the subject of the Lenape Resources lawsuit against the Town of Avon dealt with the practical side of the case. The legal side is also compelling and it’s laid out very methodically in a Memorandum of Law submitted with the complaint. It addresses not only oil and gas law, but also pre-emption law, land use law and other statutes applicable to the case.

There are several legal bases for the complaint, which are summarized below, but the one overwhelming conclusion to be drawn from them is this; there is no foundation for any exceptions to the state’s oil and gas pre-emptions, other than those specifically articulated in the law itself. Any other conclusion would, in sharp contrast to mining law, necessarily render the oil and gas pre-emption irrelevant and undermine the entire state program of regulation. Moreover, it would ensure a complete disinvestment of resources in the industry within the state, subjecting all municipalities to the whims of a few – a subversion, rather than an application, of home rule.

The false idea that home rule means being able to contravene state policy has led natural gas opponents to craft a rationale based on a version of home rule that doesn’t undermine state policy while ignoring aspects of oil and gas development that would ensure the opposite. They also turn a blind eye to the one case which is on point, and went up on appeal, dismissing it because it was, they say, too obvious, as if a harder case would have somehow made better law.

All of this, and much more, is addressed in the aforementioned Memorandum of Law, which is well worth reading.

http://eidmarcellus.org/marcellus-shale/free-advice-on-natural-gas-...