Editorial: Supreme Court right to decide whether cities can limit fracking

Colorado’s Supreme Court at long last will bring clarity to one of the most divisive issues in the state and, indeed, the nation: whether municipalities can ban hydraulic fracturing within their city limits. While the Supreme Court’s ultimate decision will apply only in Colorado, the case is being watched around the country, where similar battles between the energy sector and municipalities are being waged.

The Colorado Supreme Court will take up a case at the request of the Colorado Court of Appeals, which has considered lower-court rulings overturning fracking restrictions in Fort Collins and Longmont. Longmont voters in 2012 imposed an outright ban on hydraulic fracturing, while Fort Collins voters implemented a five-year moratorium on fracking in 2013.

Both decisions were challenged by the state, which believes that regulation of the oil and gas sector is the exclusive purview of the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. Lower courts overturned the restrictions, with the cities appealing.

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We support the Supreme Court taking up this issue, which is in desperate need of clarity. As BizWest reporter Joshus Lindenstein noted recently on BizWest.com, “The Colorado Supreme Court’s case announcement on Monday summarized the issue to be considered in the same way for both the Longmont and Fort Collins cases, which was, ‘Whether home-rule cities are pre-empted from promulgating local land-use regulations that prohibit the use of hydraulic fracturing in oil and gas operations and the storage of such waste products within city limits when the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission regulates hydraulic fracturing within the state.’ ”

It is not the first time the Supreme Court has considered whether municipalities can limit oil and gas activity, but it will be the first definitive ruling since the boom in hydraulic fracturing began in the last few years. And, we hope, it will bring an answer to one of the state’s most divisive issues.