{"id":23520,"date":"2015-04-03T11:34:35","date_gmt":"2015-04-03T16:34:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/?p=23520"},"modified":"2015-04-03T11:34:35","modified_gmt":"2015-04-03T16:34:35","slug":"stillwater-officials-oil-lobbyists-warned-of-legislation-if-vote-on-drilling-ordinance-wasnt-delayed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2015\/04\/03\/stillwater-officials-oil-lobbyists-warned-of-legislation-if-vote-on-drilling-ordinance-wasnt-delayed\/","title":{"rendered":"Stillwater Officials: Oil Lobbyists Warned of Legislation if Vote on Drilling Ordinance Wasn’t Delayed"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

jbpribanic \/ Public Herald<\/p>\n

A flare glows in the background on an unconventional well pad, releasing pressure from a fracked well in Payne County, Okla.<\/p>\n<\/div>

Officials in at least two cities have publicly questioned<\/a> bills filed during the 2015 legislative session that would limit the local governments’ authority to regulate oil and gas activity.<\/p>

The bills’ authors say the measures<\/a> are meant to prevent towns, cities and counties from banning or effectively banning<\/a> oil and gas drilling and related production activities, like hydraulic fracturing. Officials in Norman and Stillwater, for their part, say the legislation is an overreach that could limit their ability to write ordinances to protect the health and safety of local residents.<\/p>

Stillwater has been considering stricter oil and gas ordinances, including 1,000-foot setbacks and limits on things like noise, traffic, gas flares, lights and dust. Two Stillwater city councilors say oil industry representatives told them to delay their vote on the ordinance or state lawmakers would pass a law that could “cost the city a lot of money,” the Tulsa World<\/em>‘s Ziva Branstetter reports<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The lobbyists and an attorney representing the Consumer Energy Alliance, an energy industry group based in Washington, D.C., told councilors that state lawmakers will approve one of two bills currently before the Legislature. If the council failed to delay its vote on the local ordinance, the lawmakers would pass the bill that is more restrictive of cities\u2019 ability to regulate drilling, the councilors say they were told.<\/p>

Oklahoma-based lobbyists Pat Hall and Jim Dunlap met with council members before their March 23 meeting, during which councilors voted 3-2 to delay a vote on the ordinance. A public hearing on the ordinance had been set for April 6 but was delayed until April 20.<\/p>

\u201cThey said this is not a threat. \u2026 This is what will happen,\u201d Councilor Gina Noble said.<\/p><\/blockquote>

Hall, the lobbyist, acknowledges asking Stillwater city councilors to delay a vote on the ordinance, but denies it was a threat.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if it (the vote) was because of us,\u201d Hall said.<\/p>

\u201cWe tried to really reiterate that we were not in any way threatening them. We were just showing them that there\u2019s two bills, \u2026 one that has the word \u2018reasonable\u2019 in it so the city of Stillwater could still pass an ordinance.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Officials in at least two cities have publicly questioned bills filed during the 2015 legislative session that would limit the local governments’ authority to regulate oil and gas activity.The bills’ authors say the measures are meant to prevent towns, cities and counties from banning or effectively banning oil and gas drilling and related production activities, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":23526,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[490],"tags":[630,238,270,631,419],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23520"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23520"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23520\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23529,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23520\/revisions\/23529"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}