On October 14, 2015,
the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania partly
granted and partly denied a Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings
to invalidate Grant Township’s Community Bill of Rights Ordinance prohibiting
oil and gas waste disposal within the township’s borders.
In June 2014, Grant
Township enacted an ordinance “establishing a Community Bill of Rights for the
people of Grant Township, Indiana County, Pennsylvania, which prohibits
activities and projects that would violate the Bill of Rights”, such as waste
generated from oil and gas operations.
On August 8, 2014,
Pennsylvania General Energy Company (PGE) filed a complaint against Grant
Township alleging that “[a]s a direct and proximate cause of Grant Township’s
adoption of the Community Bill of Rights Ordinance, PGE will be precluded from
operating the [injection] well for legally permissible injection purposes and
will have to seek more costly alternatives for managing produced fluids.” Grant
Township counterclaimed that PGE’s civil action violated “the inalienable
rights of the people of its Township to ‘local community self government.’”
The U.S. District Court
concluded that the Community Bill of Rights Ordinance is not preempted by the
Pennsylvania Oil and Gas Act, however, violates and is preempted by Pennsylvania
law. Therefore, the Community Bill of Rights Ordinance is invalid and
unenforceable.
Further information on
this case is available at docket no. 1:14-cv-00209.
Written by Chloe Marie - Research Fellow
10/16/2015
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