New York’s highest court agreed to decide whether towns and cities have the power to pass anti-fracking laws, according to news reports.
The Court of Appeals in Albany said it will hear arguments in lawsuits seeking to block drilling bans, reports Bloomberg news service. The drilling bans, passed by the upstate towns of Dryden and Middlefield, aimed at stopping the practice of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in which millions of gallons of chemically treated water is forced underground to break up rock and free trapped natural gas, writes Chris Dolmetsch of Bloomberg.
An intermediate-level appellate court in Albany in May affirmed lower-court rulings upholding the bans opposed by some property owners seeking to lease their mineral rights, notes the article by Dolmetsch.
