In New York, An Aggressive Push Against A Local Drilling Ban

Scott Detrow

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Scott Detrow is a congressional correspondent for NPR. He also co-hosts the NPR Politics Podcast.

Detrow joined NPR in 2015 to cover the presidential election. He focused on the Republican side of the 2016 race, spending time on the campaign trail with Donald Trump, and also reported on the election's technology and data angles.

Detrow worked as a statehouse reporter for member stations WITF in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and KQED in San Francisco, California. He has also covered energy policy for NPR's StateImpact project, where his reports on Pennsylvania's hydraulic fracturing boom won a DuPont-Columbia and national Edward R. Murrow Award in 2013.

September 14, 2011 | 3:08 PM

Speaking of local zoning ordinances, which StateImpact covered earlier today, here’s the latest sign drillers are are taking them very seriously:
An energy company is already challenging a Tompkins County, New York, community’s drilling ban in court, despite the fact Marcellus Shale drilling has yet to begin in the Empire State.
From Politics On The Hudson:

In a move that could have implications for municipalities across the state, a Denver-based natural-gas company will try to have a drilling ban in a Tompkins County town thrown out in court, its attorney said today.

Anschutz Exploration Corporation will file a lawsuit in state Supreme Court in Tompkins County to have the ban struck down in the town of Dryden, according to Albany-based attorney Thomas West.
With the state moving toward allowing high-volume hydraulic fracturing, Dryden has been one of a handful of municipalities across the state have altered their zoning regulations or passed legislation meant to ban the activity. But the state Department of Environmental Conservation has said a court will likely have to decide whether those bans would hold up under state law, which gives regulatory power to the state agency.