City of Columbus Community Bill of Rights Fracking Ban Initiative Charter Amendment (November 2016)

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Columbus "Community Bill of Rights" Fracking Ban Initiative
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The basics
Election date:
November 8, 2016
Status:
Not on the ballot
Topic:
Local fracking
Related articles
Local fracking on the ballot
November 8, 2016 ballot measures in Ohio
Franklin County, Ohio ballot measures
Using local measures to advance national agendas
See also
Columbus, Ohio
Fracking in Ohio
Fracking

A community bill of rights and ban on new oil and gas extraction was not put on the ballot for Columbus voters in Franklin County, Ohio, on November 8, 2016.

Petitioners also failed to collect enough valid signature to put the initiative on the ballot in November 2015.[1]

If approved, this measure would have amended the Columbus city charter to establish a community bill of rights, including:[2]

  • the right of the city's residents to self governance
  • the right to a clean, pure and safe environment
  • the right of natural communities and ecosystems to exist and flourish
  • the right to a sustainable energy future

As a means of ensuring the rights that would be established by the initiative, it would have prohibited any new oil and gas extraction activity in the city and would claim to invalidate any permit or license for such activity issued by another entity, such as the state, if the permit or license violated the city's charter. Moreover, the initiative would have given legal standing to all city residents to enforce the initiative in court and would remove the status of "person" from corporations or businesses.[2][3]

Support

Community Bill of Rights logo

Columbus Community Bill of Rights was behind this initiative.[4]

The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) also supported this effort and the similar efforts in other Ohio cities and counties.[5]

Greg Pace, an organizer of the initiative effort, said, “Basically, it spells out our unalienable rights to pure water, safe soil, clean air, self-governance in our own community, a sustainable energy future and unimpeded usage of our private property. All of these are spelled out as our rights in this country and our community and based on these rights we are banning the fracking infrastructure.”[6]

Background

See also Fracking in Ohio
Map of oil and natural gas wells near Columbus, Ohio as of July 16, 2015

The map on the right shows the active horizontal and directional wells near Columbus as of July 16, 2015. The blue dots mark where a well has been permitted but not yet drilled. Dark pink indicates active injection is happening at that well. Yellow signifies a well that is being drilled. Green indicates that a well is producing. Light pink denotes that the well is plugged. Salmon means that the well is inactive. Orange means the well is dry and abandoned.[7]

The first oil well was drilled in Ohio in 1895, and production has been occurring ever since. Just over 75 percent of counties in Ohio have commercial oil and gas resources, although production is concentrated in the eastern half of the state. From 1895 to 2009, Ohio produced more than 1 billion barrels of oil and 9 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. A study released in July 2014 estimated that the Utica shale, located under Eastern Ohio, could hold 2 billion barrels of oil and 782 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. These estimates far surpassed previous projections of the amounts of oil and natural gas in that area. Fracking began in Ohio in 1952, and, from then until 2009, fracking has been used to extract oil and gas from 80,306 wells.[8][9][10][11][12][13][14]

Oil and gas drilling is regulated by the oil and gas resources division of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR). The division is responsible for regulating oil and gas operations, drilling, underground injection and brine disposal. The ODNR Division of Oil and Gas Resources is also responsible for inspecting the drilling, plugging and restoration of wells and well sites. On June 11, 2012, Governor John Kasich (R) signed Senate Bill 315, creating new regulations applying to fracking. This bill created a chemical disclosure requirement, set up rules for chemical sharing among doctors, required water sampling, created daily fines of up to $20,000 for noncompliance and increased operator liability for horizontal wells.[15][16]

Ohio Supreme Court ruling

In February 2015, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that local zoning laws couldn't be used to prohibit fracking or otherwise "circumvent the state's authority over oil and gas drilling." The lawsuit was brought by the city of Munroe Falls after Beck Energy Corp. was granted a permit by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources to drill for oil in a traditional oil well in 2011. The city sued, arguing that the permit violated local zoning ordinances.[17][18]

Central to this court case was whether the home-rule power that the Ohio State Legislature delegated to local governments could be used to regulate oil and natural gas activities if local regulations conflicted with state policy. Home rule is the ability for counties, municipalities, towns, townships and villages to regulate certain activities within their jurisdiction. Because state governments were often overwhelmed with legislation that localities wanted passed, some state legislatures started proposing home-rule laws in the 1900s that granted some local governments the ability to regulate certain activities. According to the National League of Cities, home-rule power "is limited to specific fields, and subject to constant judicial interpretation, but home rule creates local autonomy and limits the degree of state interference in local affairs." Across the country, there has been conflict between state and local governments over which level of government should regulate oil and natural gas activity. Ohio is just one state where this fight has gone to the courts.[19]

Path to the ballot

See also: Laws governing local ballot measures in Ohio

According to the city charter, valid signatures equal to 10 percent of the total votes cast in the last regular city election were required to qualify a charter amendment for the ballot.

Voting on Fracking
Frackingsite2.jpg
Policy
Fracking policy
Ballot Measures
By state
By year
Not on ballot


2015 attempt

In order to qualify this initiative for the ballot, proponents needed a minimum of 8,956 valid signatures. On July 2, 2015, petitioners turned in 13,587 signatures. Almost 5,500 of the submitted signatures, however, were found to be invalid, and the Franklin County Board of Elections rejected the petition as insufficient. Petitioners said they would try to put the measure on the ballot in November 2016.[1][3][6]

2016 attempt

After failing to collect enough signatures to put this initiative on the ballot in 2015, petitioners announced that they would launch another initiative effort in 2016. The signature requirement of 17,731 valid signatures for the 2016 initiative was established by the vote total at the city's regular election on November 3, 2015. The group was not able to put the measure on the ballot.

Related measures

2015 and 2016

  1. Athens County Home Rule Charter, Community Bill of Rights and Fracking Waste Prohibition Initiative (November 2015) 
  2. Medina County Home Rule Charter, Community Bill of Rights and Fracking Prohibition Initiative (November 2015) 
  3. Meigs County Home Rule Charter, Community Bill of Rights and Fracking Prohibition Initiative (November 2015) 
  4. City of Youngstown "Community Bill of Rights" and Fracking Ban Initiative Charter Amendment (November 2015) Defeatedd
  5. Fulton County Home Rule Charter, Community Bill of Rights and Fracking Prohibition Initiative (November 2015) 
  6. Portage County Home Rule Charter, Community Bill of Rights and Fracking Waste Prohibition Initiative (November 2015) 

Previous measures

  1. Youngstown "Community Bill of Rights" Fracking Ban Charter Amendment (May 2014) Defeatedd
  2. City of Athens Fracking Ban Initiative, Issue 7 (November 2014) Approveda
  3. City of Niles "Community Bill of Rights" Fracking Ban Initiative (November 2014) 
  4. Village of Gates Mills "Community Bill of Rights" Fracking Ban, Issue 51 (November 2014) Defeatedd
  5. Youngstown "Community Bill of Rights" Frack Ban, Issue 4 (November 2014) Defeatedd
  6. City of Kent "Community Bill of Rights" Fracking Ban Initiative, Issue 21 (November 2014) Defeatedd
  7. Athens County, Ohio, Oil and Gas Restrictions and Home Rule Charter Initiative (November 2017) 

Recent news

This section links to a Google news search for the term "Columbus + community + bill + of + rights + initiative"


Columbus community bill of rights initiative News Feed

See also

External links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 WCBE.org, "Anti-Fracking Measure Will Not Make Columbus' November Ballot," July 21, 2015
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Columbus Community Bill of Rights, "PETITION FOR SUBMISSION OF PROPOSED AMENDMENT TO CHARTER," accessed July 14, 2015
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 WCBE.org, "Signatures To Get Anti-Fracking Measure On Columbus' Ballot Submitted," July 2, 2015
  4. ↑ Columbus Community Bill of Rights, "Home," accessed July 15, 2015
  5. ↑ Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, "Home," accessed May 5, 2015
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 The Columbus Dispatch, "Charter amendment in Columbus sought to ban fracking," July 2, 2015
  7. ↑ Ohio Department of Natural Resources, "Ohio Oil & Gas Wells," accessed March 18, 2014
  8. ↑ Clinton County Ohio, "Oil and Gas Fields Map of Ohio," accessed March 18, 2014
  9. ↑ One barrel of oil produces about 19 gallons of gas.
  10. ↑ U.S. Energy Information Administration, "Frequently Asked Questions," May 30, 2013, accessed March 18, 2014
  11. ↑ PolitiFact.com, "State Sen. Kris Jordan says 'fracking' has been used more than 60 years in Ohio," June 15, 2011, accessed March 18, 2014
  12. ↑ U.S. Geological Survey, "USGS Releases First Assessment of Shale Gas Resources in the Utica Shale: 38 trillion cubic feet," October 4, 2012
  13. ↑ Power Source, "New study shows greater potential for Utica Shale," July 14, 2015
  14. ↑ Utica Shale News and Maps, "Utica Shale Oil Discovery In Ohio, News And Maps," accessed July 16, 2015
  15. ↑ Ohio Division of Oil and Gas Resources, "About Us," accessed March 18, 2014
  16. ↑ Ohio Division of Oil and Gas Resources, "SB 315 Information," accessed March 18, 2014
  17. ↑ Mansfield News Journal, "Court upholds Ohio's power to regulate drilling," February 17, 2015
  18. ↑ Cleveland.com, "Ohio Supreme Court rules Monroe Falls regulations on oil and gas drilling are improper," February 18, 2015
  19. ↑ National League of Cities, "Local Government Authority," accessed July 16, 2015
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