The New York Court of Appeals, the highest court in the state, heard oral arguments this week in two cases regarding whether municipalities can use local zoning laws to prohibit hydraulic fracturing within the city boundaries, or whether the state’s law regulating oil and gas development within the state preempts a municipality’s local zoning laws. Presenting their cases before the seven judges on the bench, attorneys for the upstate New York towns of Dryden and Middlefield argued on the side of local zoning laws being able to prohibit oil and gas activities within a municipality’s boundaries, while a trustee for Oslo, Norway-based Norse Energy challenged the Dryden ban. Cooperstown Holstein, a dairy farm that leased land for drilling, challenged the ban by Middlefield. Lower courts had found no express or implied preemption. The Appellate Division, Third Department affirmed in May 2013 earlier Supreme Court decisions that dismissed both lawsuits, […]