Saying No to Fracking, Yes to Local Self-Governance

How do we say “No more!” ask community members and local officials facing the daunting spread of natural gas drilling.  “How do we assert our rights to local self-governance?” As the number of gas wells in Pennsylvania grows each week, concern is mounting and citizens want to know how to stop the drilling and protect their community. On Saturday, June 11th, 2011, CELDF and the City of Pittsburgh co-sponsored a conference for local officials and community members across the state:  Stopping Marcellus Shale Gas Drilling at the Municipal Level.

More than fifty people attended the event, which featured Doug Shields, Pittsburgh City Council, Ben Price, Project Director of CELDF, Jules Lobel, University of Pittsburgh law professor and Vice President of the Center for Constitutional Rights, and others.

In November 2010, the Pittsburgh City Council unanimously passed the Pittsburgh's Community Protection from Natural Gas Drilling Ordinance, introduced by Councilmember Doug Shields. The historic action drew international attention and other communities are asking, “How can we do that?” They attended the conference to find out how.

“We need to educate the community, we need to educate elected officials,” asserted Councilman Shields. “You can’t give more power to corporations than you can to individual citizens.”

A concern that surfaced for many attendees focused on the possible overturning of the ordinances through lawsuits.

Dr. Jules Lobel made a compelling argument that the possible—even likely—overturning of the ordinance would reveal the contradiction we live under. “The Pennsylvania Constitution says ‘The people have a right to clean air, pure water, and to the preservation of the natural, scenic, historic and esthetic values of the environment.’ Yet we are told we have no right to stop the poisoning of our communities. The abolitionists led a human rights movement in part by bringing case after case before the courts, undeterred by continual losses, to reveal the contradiction between the language that all men are created equal, and the reality of the legality of slavery. So too is this the start of a movement. The communities in Pennsylvania are revealing the contradiction between the language that we have an inherent right to clean air and pure water, the story that we are a self-governing people, and the reality of corporate rights trumping human rights.”

What happens now?  Said Councilman Shields, “There is no democracy in this process [of how drilling decisions are made].  So what do you do?  You act.”  As the pressure to drill increases, so do the people’s recognition that it is time to say “No more!” and to assert their right to decide what happens, where they live.

CELDF and the Lehigh Valley Community Rights Network are co-sponsoring the next conference to be held September 17th in Williamsport, PA. For more information, contact Stacey Schmader at info@celdf.org or 717-498-0054.