Important legal battles over whether states or local governments have the authority to ban or otherwise regulate unconventional oil and gas (O&G) development, which includes hydraulic fracturing, are being fought in state courts. The Colorado Supreme Court has been heavily involved in this issue, recently handing down two decisions that affirm that state law preempts ordinances issued by local governments that want to keep fracking outside their borders.
 |
One case decided by the Court concerns a 2012 vote by the residents of the City of Longmont, Colorado, a home-rule municipality, to add an article (Article XVI) to its charter to prohibit within the city both the use of hydraulic fracturing to extract oil, gas, or other hydrocarbons and the storage in open pits of disposed solid or liquid wastes created in connection with the hydraulic fracturing process.
Later that year, the Colorado Oil and Gas Association sued Longmont in a state district court, arguing that Colorado’s Oil and Gas Conservation Act preempted Longmont’s bans on fracking and storage and disposal of fracking waste.