On October 1, 2015,
Governor Pat McCrory signed into law Senate
Bill 119 rendering invalid local ordinances that ban natural
gas drilling operations involving use of horizontal drilling and/or hydraulic
fracturing. SB 119 is entitled “An Act to make technical corrections to the
general statutes and session laws, as recommended by the general statutes
commission, and to make additional technical and other amendments to the
statutes and session laws.”
Section 56.2(a) of SB 119 stipulates that “all provisions of local
ordinances, including those regulating land use, adopted by counties,
municipalities, or other local authorities . . . are invalidated and
unenforceable, to the extent [that they] place any restriction or condition not
placed by this Article upon oil and gas exploration, development, and
production activities and use of horizontal drilling or hydraulic fracturing
for that purpose within any county, city, or other political subdivision.”
This legislation
was enacted two days after the Stokes County Board of Commissioners approved a
three-year moratorium on oil and gas activities using hydraulic fracturing.
This is an update of an
original post dated from September 29, 2015.
Written by Chloe Marie - Research Fellow
10/07/2015
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