Act 13 Ruling Convinces Butler County Township To Keep Its Drilling Restrictions In Place

• 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.

Commonwealth Court’s decision to throw out Act 13’s local zoning restrictions is already impacting municipal zoning.
Cranberry Township, Butler County barred Marcellus Shale drilling from residential zones in 2010. After Pennsylvania’s new Marcellus Shale law mandated drilling be allowed in all types of zones, the township’s Board of Supervisors prepared to re-write Cranberry’s ordinances.
But as Cranberry Patch reports, the township has decided to keep its initial regulations in place.
That’s despite the fact the Corbett Administration has appealed Commonwealth Court’s decision to the state Supreme Court.

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