Ruling on drilling brings hope to oil, gas exploration in Ohio

On its surface, an Ohio Supreme Court ruling this week looks like a solid victory for the oil and gas industry in its quest to mine rich natural resources from the depths of Ohio’s earth — without needless interference.

On closer inspection, however, the narrow 4-3 ruling Tuesday that concluded that the Ohio Constitution does not give local governments the power to supersede state statutes in the regulation of drilling activities cannot be viewed as a slam-dunk win by the industry and its supporters.

Nonetheless, we are cautiously optimistic that the ruling will serve as a firm precedent that the state — specifically the Ohio Department of Natural Resources — maintains sole and exclusive authority over drilling activities and that local communities can neither ban nor issue intrusive restrictions.

The emotionally-charged conflict strikes close to home. In the Mahoning Valley, the stakes are high for maintaining robust health for drilling and drilling-related steel and pipe-making industries. Over the past two years, many will recall, Frack Free Mahoning Valley and its allies have placed fracking-ban initiatives on the Youngstown ballot. Over those same two years and four campaigns, drillers, economic-development agencies, The Vindicator and others have adamantly opposed the ill-named Community Bill of Rights, the heart of which was its ban on hydraulic fracturing within city limits. Each time, a responsible majority of voters solidly defeated the unconstitutional and jobs-killing referendum.

On Tuesday, the state’s high court validated a central tenet of those arguments. In her majority opinion in the case from the Akron suburb of Munroe Falls, which had tried to restrict drilling through municipal laws, Justice Judith French wrote, “We have consistently held that a municipal-licensing ordinance conflicts with a state-licensing scheme if the local ordinance restricts an activity which a state license permits.” In other words, state law trumps local law in all things drilling related in Ohio.

POTENTIAL LOOPHOLES?

Still, some locally and elsewhere in Ohio vow to carry on their misguided fight. The rumblings of challenge focus on limitations that technically restrict the ruling’s immediate and direct impact to Munroe Falls. In their search for fresh momentum, some fracking foes also already are raising the specter of gorillas and elephants.

To wit, Justice Judith Lanzinger wrote in her minority dissent, “There is no need for the state to act as the thousand-pound gorilla, gobbling up exclusive authority over the oil and gas industry, leaving not even a banana peel of home rule for municipalities.”

Or consider the rebuff from Justice William O’Neill: “The Ohio General Assembly has created a zookeeper to feed the elephant in the living room.”

As a result, some legal scholars believe a loophole remains open for more general zoning ordinances or popular referendums to stand in the way of ODNR’s statutory authority.

Our hopes, however, are that the majority will hold sway and that the ruling will be broadly interpreted in any future legal battles. Toward that end, state lawmakers may want to consider reinforcing the Ohio Revised Code with more specific language outlawing local efforts to subvert state control. In addition, they should continue working to ensure maximum safety and environmental protection at all drilling sites to lessen the chances of challenges in the first place.