LOCAL HYDROFRACKING BANS 651
recommendation and relies on Act 13.^159 It is unclear whether
Pittsburgh will revise its hydrofracking ban.^160 As challenges to
Act 13 continue to move through Pennsylvania courts, it remains
unsettled whether towns in Pennsylvania will ultimately be able
to control the location of hydrofracking through their zoning
power.
West Virginia was also confronted with the issue of
preemption with regard to hydrofracking when a number of its
local municipalities passed zoning laws banning hydrofracking.^161
However, West Virginia’s Monongalia County Circuit Court
struck down a ban passed by Morgantown^162 that prohibited
“[d]rilling a well for the purpose of extracting or storing oil or
gas using horizontal drilling with fracturing or fracking
methods.”^163 The court ruled that the West Virginia Oil and Gas
Act^164 fully “occupied the field,” rendering the local ban
invalid.^165 The court further found that the Oil and Gas Act
indicated an intention for regulatory authority to be at the state
Gas Extraction Conflicts with State Law, PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE (Sept.
11, 2012), http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/local/neighborhoods-city/puc-
says-pittsburghs-ban-on-natural-gas-extraction-conflicts-with-state-law-
652858/.
(^159) Id.
(^160) Levy, supra note 156; see also Abby W. Schachter, Pittsburgh
Rethinks Fracking Ban, N.Y. POST (Sept. 20, 2012), http://www.nypost.com/
p/blogs/capitol/pittsburgh_rethinks_fracking_ban_QoyPPTO8iYQNEs5BTQpt
eO (reporting that a Pittsburgh councilman has “proposed legislation to
eliminate the current ban and replace it instead with strict zoning regulations
for gas extraction”).
(^161) Goho, supra note 14, at 6.
(^162) Adam Orford, Local Bans on Hydraulic Fracturing Upheld in New
York State, Struck Down in West Virginia, MARTEN L. NEWS (Apr. 10,
2012), http://www.martenlaw.com/newsletter/20120410-local-hydraulic-
fracturing-bans.
(^163) Goho, supra note 14, at 6. (quoting An Ordinance Repealing Article
721 of the City of Morgantown’s Business and Taxation Code (Morgantown,
W. Va. 2011), available at http://documents.foodandwaterwatch.org/
doc/Frack_Actions_MorgantownWV-ban.pdf).
(^164) West Virginia Oil and Gas Act, W. VA. CODE § 22-6-1 to -41 (West
2011).
(^165) Orford, supra note 162.