Opponents of the oil and gas industry in Ohio recently have suffered stinging defeats in the courts. In Medina County, landowners seeking to block the Nexus Pipeline lost a fight to keep surveyors off their property. Meanwhile, charter government initiatives in Meigs, Portage and Athens counties aimed at stopping hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, were blocked from the November ballot.
The legal battles represent understandable frustration with the lack of local control over drilling, waste disposal and the construction of pipelines. In Ohio, state law controls oil and gas drilling and related activities, plus surveying pipeline routes. (The actual routing of interstate pipelines falls into the province of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.)
In each case, the citizen groups collided with solid, well-reasoned interpretations of state law. In the Medina County case, homeowners argued that surveyors should not be allowed on their property unless the land was being appropriated. In a 3-0 ruling, the 9th District Court of Appeals found no such requirement, Ohio law plainly requiring homeowners to provide the necessary access for surveying.
In the case involving charter government, the Ohio Supreme Court, on a 6-1 vote, upheld the position of Jon Husted, the secretary of state, and local boards of elections by refusing to force flawed charter initiatives onto the November ballot. While blocking access to the ballot is a serious matter, state law giving citizens the ultimate authority to initiate and repeal through petition drives, Husted and the local boards had little recourse but to deny ballot access to the charter government initiatives.
The petitioners entered shaky legal ground by attempting to use charter government as a way to circumvent state law regulating the oil and gas industry. The ballot measures called for prohibiting the disposal of fracking waste and a ban on the use of water for the fracking process. Otherwise, as the secretary and the local elections boards rightly found, the measures fell short of the requirements in state law. The proposals did not call for altering the existing commissioner form of government, or what the charter form involves.
Allowing charter government to be used in such a way would set a dangerous precedent. The charters in place in Summit and Cuyahoga counties are aimed at broad reforms, not narrowly targeted at single issues.
That said, the frustration felt by local residents over state control of oil and gas drilling deserves a response. Residents correctly see fracking as a heavy industrial activity generating millions of gallons of chemical-laced water. While the state does have a big role to play, it also is crucial that local governments have a way to use zoning and other tools to protect the health and safety of citizens.
Rather than hijack charter government, the better way forward is to lobby for changes in state law that create a better balance between state and local oversight of the powerful oil and gas industry. Local voices, and even votes, may work as a counterweight to substantial industry campaign contributions. Recall that Statehouse Republicans are fond of saying the government closest to the people knows best.