towns and cities

Towns Fighting to Stand Ground Against Gas Drillers

The fight, which pits towns and cities against energy companies and states eager for growth, has raised a fundamental question about the role of local government: How much authority should communities have over the use of their land?

The battle is playing out in Pennsylvania as the Republican-controlled legislature considers bills that would in their current form sharply limit a community’s right to control where gas companies can operate on private property. Critics say the final bill could vastly weaken local zoning powers and give industry the upper hand in exchange for a tax, which cash-strapped municipalities badly need.

The legislation has struck a nerve in a state where land control has long been considered quintessentially local.

“I’m a conservative Republican, and this goes against all my principles,” said Brian Coppola, the chairman of the Board of Supervisors of Robinson Township. The pending legislation, he said, “is an enormous land grab on the part of the industry. Our property rights are being trampled.”

Mr. Coppola noted a hillside in town that began to crack and slide under the weight of a new shale gas processing plant, which he contends was built without a permit. The town’s zoning powers allowed him, through a court, to compel the company to follow town regulations and allow town inspectors access to the site. The site was eventually stabilized. Losing those powers would leave local officials out of the equation, he said, even though they are responsible for protecting the health and safety of their citizens.

“I’m an unpaid, part-time elected official, and it’s been a nightmare,” he said. “The state is not capable of monitoring even the most basic parts of this industry.”

Local governments argue that drilling is an industrial activity, just like a gas station or a cement factory, that should be subject to zoning. Dozens of towns, cities and counties across the country have enacted rules on noise, lighting and the distance from homes and, in some cases, outright bans. In New York alone, there have been at least 70 such actions.

Companies say the rush to regulate has produced an overly burdensome set of demands that is denting their potential when the economy desperately needs a boost.

“It’s like having to get a different driver’s license in every town,” said Matt Pitzarella, a spokesman for Range Resources, a Texas drilling company that is active here.

The flurry of local rules comes as the federal government inches forward on a national study of hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, the process used to extract previously inaccessible natural gas from shale deep underground.

The study is expected to shape the future of the industry, but progress has been slow. In the meantime, courts have become the next frontier.

In New York in September, a Denver exploration company sued Dryden, a town near Ithaca, over a drilling ban. In Colorado, Gunnison County, which contains a ski resort, is fighting a drilling company’s court challenge to its zoning. In Texas, a restrictive gas drilling ordinance adopted by an affluent suburb of Dallas called Flower Mound has drawn several lawsuits alleging it amounts to an unconstitutional seizure of mineral rights.

Jordan Yeager, a Pennsylvania lawyer who represents municipalities, said litigation brought by gas companies had a chilling affect, discouraging towns and cities from enacting regulations because they can’t afford to defend them in court.

Supporters of the Pennsylvania legislation argue that it would hold the industry to higher, more uniform environmental standards in addition to charging them fees.

“We substantially raised the bar of what we expect from natural gas operators,” said Representative Matthew Baker, a Republican who helped shape the legislation.

Emily A. Collins, a professor of environmental and oil and gas law at the University of Pittsburgh, said parts of the legislation would help the environment — for example, expanding the distance in which a driller could be presumed responsible for replacing a tainted water supply.

Correction: December 14, 2011

Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this article misidentified the school at which Emily A. Collins is a professor. It is the University of Pittsburgh, not the University of Pennsylvania.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=a2e2e5c2c9bb16a36da5908149c4d863

Massachusetts House Seeks to Limit Collective Bargaining

The bill, passed late Tuesday night in advance of planned labor protests, would let local officials unilaterally set health insurance co-payments and deductibles for their employees after a monthlong discussion period with unions. Leaders of the House said it would save cities and towns $100 million in the budget year that starts in July.

While Republican-controlled legislatures in Wisconsin and Ohio this year have weakened the ability of public-sector unions to bargain collectively, and Republicans in other states have pushed for a variety of curbs on unions, Massachusetts is the first state where a Democratic-led chamber has voted to limit bargaining rights.

“Everybody’s pretty upset,” said Robert J. Haynes, president of the Massachusetts A.F.L.-C.I.O. “It’s hard for me to understand how my good friends in the Massachusetts House, that have told me they support collective bargaining, could do this.”

But the bill faces uncertain prospects in the Senate, which is also controlled by Democrats. Senate President Therese Murray said Wednesday that she was pleased the House had “moved the needle” on the contentious issue of health care costs, but she has not endorsed the plan.

Dave Falcone, a Senate spokesman, said Friday that Ms. Murray “has been consistent in her message that something has to be done, that there has to be savings, and that everyone should have a seat at the table.”

While Gov. Deval Patrick, a Democrat, has not pledged to sign the bill if it reaches his desk, he proposed a similar plan early this year and praised the House this week for its “important” vote. He also raised concerns about a provision of the House plan allowing towns and cities to opt out of it and said unions must not have veto power over municipal health plans.

On Friday, Mr. Patrick said through a spokesman that labor must have “a meaningful role” in determining how to control health care costs, though he did not elaborate.

The House voted 111-42 in favor of the plan, with 81 Democrats approving it.

Representative Brian Dempsey, the Democratic chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said he supported it — and in fact helped create it — after seeing no other way of avoiding disastrous cuts to local public safety and education budgets. The legislature had urged municipalities and their unions to curb rising health costs for several years, he said, but with no success.

“We have to get a handle on this,” he said. “The fact of the matter is costs are going up and the money is not going to the areas we desperately need it to.”

He acknowledged, though, that it was “certainly difficult” to hear labor’s angry response.

Michael J. Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, a nonpartisan watchdog group that supported the plan, said the health care costs for cities and towns had been growing by about 11 percent a year and “cannibalizing” local budgets.

“Yes, it’s a small curtailment of their collective bargaining powers,” Mr. Widmer said of municipal unions, “but with the corollary that it will save lots of their members’ jobs.”

Under the House plan, co-payments and deductibles for municipal workers would have to be at least equal to those of state employees. And unions would retain the right to negotiate what portion of premiums their members paid.

Mr. Patrick and House leaders have sought to head off comparisons with the legislation that Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin signed earlier this year, saying the Massachusetts plan does not go nearly as far. That did not stop the Republican Party of Wisconsin from proclaiming Mr. Patrick “an ally” on Friday and congratulating him on the bill. Mr. Patrick is to speak at a Democratic Party dinner in Wisconsin on Saturday.

“It’s refreshing to see that even a liberal Democrat from Massachusetts recognizes the importance of collective bargaining reform,” Mark Jefferson, the Wisconsin Republican Party’s executive director, said in a statement.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=4ed93c7eb59bdfe4fef85959e6fe9af7

Towns Fighting to Stand Ground Against Gas Drillers

Massachusetts House Seeks to Limit Collective Bargaining

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