Feel-Good Ban: Council Should Restrict, Not Bar, Gas Drilling
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
13 November 2010
Instead of dealing with a real crisis like the looming state takeover
of Pittsburgh's pension fund, City Council gave time and energy this
week to a feel-good measure that could be scrapped in court.
Council took a preliminary vote of 8-0 Tuesday to ban natural gas
drilling in the city, a move that plays to the controversy over tapping
the Marcellus Shale deposits beneath Pennsylvania. Although a final
vote is set for next Tuesday, a municipality has no authority to
prohibit such activity.
A federal judge said so last year in a case involving Blaine,
Washington County, and its ordinance against fossil-fuel development.
After a challenge in federal court, Chief U.S. District Judge Donetta
W. Ambrose ruled that the township's restrictions ran afoul of the
state Oil and Gas Act and that Blaine has no authority to annul
constitutional rights upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The city would do better to restrict -- not ban -- gas exploration, as
proposed in June by Councilman Patrick Dowd. He offered a package of
safety requirements and zoning rules that would limit drilling to large
tracts of industrial land more than 1,000 feet from homes, schools and
churches. This week, however, Mr. Dowd voted for the ban.
Does Marcellus Shale gas deserve close oversight and state inspection?
Yes. Should companies be held to strict laws that safeguard natural
resources and private property? Certainly. Should a severance tax on
the industry help pay for more regulators and mitigate the impact of
drilling? Absolutely.
But Pittsburgh, which is not an attractive area for drilling anyway
because of its sheer urban density, will get no protection from an act
of grandstanding. A city can no more ban industrial activity than it
can prohibit strip clubs.
Better that council restrict drilling through zoning than pass a ban
that is doomed in court.