Conflict of Laws

Read Energy & Utilities Law updates, alerts, news, and legal analysis from leading lawyers and law firms:

News & Analysis as of May 25, 2013

N.Y. Appellate Division Affirms Zoning Ordinance Banning Hydraulic Fracturing

by Martin Eide, Earl L. Hagström, Gregory Lahr | Sedgwick LLP on 5/9/2013

Sedgwick’s Hydraulic Fracturing Task Force has been watching the ongoing litigation involving hydraulic fracturing (fracking) bans in the towns of Dryden and Middlefield, N.Y. In February 2012 we reported on the Supreme...more

New York Court Upholds Local Hydraulic Fracturing and Oil and Gas Development Bans

by Cassie J. Dallas | BakerHostetler on 5/8/2013

Last Friday, a four judge panel of a New York appeals court upheld two local zoning laws that prohibit activities related to oil and gas exploration and development, including hydraulic fracturing. The decisions in Norse...more

Youngstown City Hydraulic Fracturing Ban Approved for May Ballot

by George Skupski | BakerHostetler on 3/21/2013

In late February, we covered the state and federal legislative and enforcement responses to the release of hydraulic fracturing waste into a Youngstown, Ohio area tributary by a local oil and gas drilling operator. Shortly...more

Virginia AG: Localities Cannot Ban Gas Drilling Through Zoning

by Jason Yearout | BakerHostetler on 3/13/2013

Continuing on this blog’s ongoing exploration of the intersection of state and local regulation of shale drilling, several weeks ago Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli issued an advisory opinion finding that state oil...more

D.C. Circuit Rebuffs Challenges to EPA’s Climate Change Regulations

by Morrison & Foerster LLP on 6/27/2012

In considering the most serious efforts to date to invalidate the federal climate change regulations, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit unanimously upheld several of EPA’s Clean Air Act greenhouse gas (GHG)...more

Pennsylvania Passes Comprehensive Amendments to Oil and Gas Laws

by Morgan Lewis on 2/15/2012

On February 13, Governor Tom Corbett signed House Bill 1950, amending Title 58 (Oil and Gas) of the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes. This legislation, most of which will become effective on April 13, imposes a drilling...more

Pennsylvania’s Oil and Gas Act Amended to Require "Uniformity" with Respect to Municipal Ordinances Regulating Oil and Gas...

by K&L Gates LLP on 2/9/2012

On February 8, 2012, the Pennsylvania General Assembly passed House Bill 1950, which makes a series of reforms to the Commonwealth’s Oil and Gas Act, 58 P.S. §§ 601.101 et seq. Among the reforms to the Act...more