As I’ve blogged about before, the two leading cases on the right of New York towns to zone fracking activities—Norse Energy v. Town of Dryden and Cooperstown Holstein Corporation v. Town of Middlefield—are now before New York’s highest court, the Court of Appeals.
With oral argument currently scheduled for June 3, NRDC attorneys filed an amicus (or “friend of the court”) brief in each of the cases last Friday on behalf of NRDC and eight other environmental and not-for-profit organizations: the American Planning Association; Catskill Mountainkeeper; Delaware Riverkeeper Network; Gas Drilling Awareness of Cortland County; the New York Public Interest Research Group; Otsego 2000; the Preservation League of New York State; Riverkeeper; Theodore Gordon Flyfishers; and Vestal Residents for Safe Energy. As with amicus briefs we’ve filed in the lower court cases, the brief supports the Towns of Dryden and Middlefield as well as the rights of municipalities everywhere to exercise their traditional land use authority over modern industrial fracking. To find a copy of the brief, see here.
We’ll be posting more updates as these cases progress, but in the meantime, for any wonks in the audience, you can read most of the papers filed in the cases at the Court of Appeals website (see link here, search for either “Dryden” or “Middlefield,” and click on the case number).