Pennsylvania’s high court struck down part of a law aimed at making natural gas development easier in the Marcellus Shale formation, saying provisions of the measure violate the state’s constitution, reports Bloomberg News.
The state Supreme Court ruled 4-2 that Act 13, signed by Governor Tom Corbett last year, unconstitutionally restricted the power of municipalities to govern gas drilling in their jurisdictions, according to an article by Sophia Pearson, Jef Feeley and Mark Drajem of Bloomberg.
Pennsylvania’s Constitution guarantees citizens’ rights “to clean air and pure water, and to the preservation of natural, scenic, historic and esthetic values of the environment,” the court concluded. The fracking-regulation statute would empower state officials to “act contrary to this right,” the court’s majority said in the Dec. 19 ruling.
