The American Oil & Gas Reporter
In less than two months, courts in three Pennsylvania jurisdictions rendered decisions addressing the appropriate scope and application of local government ordinances to the oil and gas industry. All three were decided in favor of the energy industry. The first reversed a controversial lower court decision that had invalidated a local government’s approval of an unconventional natural gas well pad development.
The second declared invalid a “community bill of rights ordinance” that banned underground injection wells and in all likelihood any unconventional well development. The last case, conversely, rejected a substantive validity challenge to a local zoning ordinance that authorized oil and gas wells in all zoning districts.
