Pa. court strikes down parts of gas industry law

Staff/wire report

HARRISBURG, Pa.

A Pennsylvania appellate court panel Thursday struck down provisions in a new law regulating the state’s booming natural-gas industry that opponents said would leave municipalities defenseless to protect property owners from being surrounded by drilling sites or waste pits.

The decision was a defeat for Gov. Tom Corbett and the natural-gas industry, which long had sought the limitations, and a prompt appeal to the state Supreme Court was expected.

Commonwealth Court judges ruled 4-3 that the limitations in Act 13 violated the state constitution. Seven municipalities had sued over the five-month-old law, saying it unconstitutionally takes away the power to control property from towns and landowners for the benefit of the oil and gas industry.

“This is a wonderful victory for local government, a recognition that local municipal officials have a valid interest in protecting the property of their citizens,” said Jordan Yeager, a lawyer who argued on behalf of the municipalities. “Act 13 took that away, and the court said that the governor and the Legislature had gone too far.”

Among the most objectionable provisions cited by the towns are requirements that drilling, waste pits and pipelines be allowed in every zoning district, including residential districts, as long as certain buffers are observed.

A spokesman for the state attorney general’s office, which defended the law, said the ruling was under review. A Senate Republican lawyer who helped write the law says he expects the decision to be appealed to the Supreme Court.

The lawyer, Drew Crompton, noted that the judges in the majority opinion agreed with the state’s argument that it has the power to tell municipalities that they need to modify zoning in accordance to what is determined on the state level.

“But then they say, ‘We don’t like how you did it,’” Crompton said. “To me, that’s a policy decision. The fundamental issue for me is we have the power to do this, and I think that will be the crux before the Supreme Court.”

Doug Shields, a former Pittsburgh city councilman who was instrumental in getting horizontal gas-well drilling banned in the city, said he does not agree with Crompton.

Shields said the state has the right to provide for local zoning, but does not have the right to say what’s included in it.

“They have the right, but in a framework,” he said. [Crompton’s] saying there is no framework.”

Shields said he believes the Supreme Court will uphold the appellate court’s decision because a previous high-court ruling allowed a community to ban a well in a resident’s yard.

That decision, he said, recognized the right of a community to define its character with zoning.

“There’s a great deal of joy among us who saw Act 13 for what it is — a clear overstepping of the Legislature in regard to our rights,” Shields said.

“How do you convey special rights to one entity without diminishing everyone else’s rights?” he added.

“The [gas] industry does a wonderful job ... to spread confusion and false arguments to forward its agenda,” he continued. “But it doesn’t hold up in a court of law.”

Carrie Hahn, an activist with The Fracking Truth Alliance in New Wilmington, Pa., called Thursday’s decision a huge victory for the state.

“The activists know that legislation was written by the gas industry,” she said. “Legislators were bought out. People need to wake up.”

Staff writer Jeanne Starmack contributed to this report.