Court of Appeals will review frack-ban lawsuits
by Casey Seiler, Capitol bureau chief
The state’s top court will review appeals in two lawsuits fighting the ability of local governments to ban hydrofracking within their borders. The suits pit the Cooperstown Holstein Corp. against the Town of Middlefield in Otsego County and Norse Energy Corp. against the Town of Dryden in Tompkins County.
The plaintiffs’ motions for leave to appeal were announced Thursday morning.
In May, the state Appellate Division upheld lower court decisions that found nothing in the state’s Oil, Gas and Solution Mining Law that removed the supremacy of localities to institute bans such as those voted into force by the two towns.
When that decision came down, legal observers noted that the odds were stacked against the Court of Appeals’ deciding to review the case because the four-judge panel’s ruling was both unanimous and did not represent an overturning of a lower court’s action. Plaintiffs’ attorneys insisted that the cases involved significant issues worthy of the top court’s attentions.
Read more at http://blog.timesunion.com/capitol/archives/194087/court-of-appeals-will-review-frack-ban-lawsuits/
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