Industry Sues to Invalidate Colorado Communities' Fracking Bans

It seems that folks’ efforts to restrict fracking from their communities is in jeopardy in Colorado. Last month the citizens of Fort Collins approved a five-year moratorium on fracking within their city, and Lafayette has made similar changes to its city charter to make fracking illegal. Fracking is legal in the state as a whole; these are merely restrictions on fracking within the boundaries of these cities.

            Now the Colorado Oil and Gas Association (COGA), an industry sponsored organization, is suing these two communities these two towns on the grounds that their fracking bans are in conflict with state law that regulates oil and gas extraction. COGA says that only the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission has exclusive authority to regulate wells in Colorado. This story goes back to around a year ago, and I've blogged about it before.

            I’m not a lawyer, so I really can’t make a judgment on the merits of this case. Considering, however, how recent research indicates the hazards of fracking (see here, here, and here)  it seems perfectly reasonable that people should be able to restrict this extractive practice from their communities. Sound reasonable? What do you think?

How Can The French Achieve This? Court Rules No Fracking in France

France Cements Fracking Ban is the headline from the Guardian. Because of pressure from environmental groups, the French passed legislation banning fracking in 2011. Today’s headline is in reference to France’s Constitutional Court, their version of a Supreme Court, which ruled that the ban is constitutional; after this court ruling the fracking ban is, without a doubt, the law of the land in France.

How is it that the French can ban fracking, while here there seems to be no question that such a ban would be an impossibility? France seems to do a lot of things right. While that country has one of the best heath care systems in the world, we here in America have a paralyzed government because our Affordable Care Act, a system that, while it is an improvement, is not as good as what French residents enjoy. France didn’t go and invade Iraq with us. They are probably better off for it, too.

More and more, due to increasing evidence (here and here) I’ve grown suspicious of hydrolic fracturing's effects on the environment, people’s health, and even our public policy and politics (here, here, here, here, and here),  and perhaps it should be banned here in the U.S. France has powerful oil companies that can lobby the French Parliamentarians, yet that power was unable to influence this fracking ban. What is different about France that their system of government can, in my opinion, serve the public good? How do they do it?