Federal Judge Strikes Down County Ordinance Banning Hydraulic Fracturing

On January 19, 2015, in a 199-page summary judgment opinion in SWEPI, LP v. Mora County, New Mexico (CIV 14-0035 JB/SCY), New Mexico U.S. District Court Judge James Browning declared that a 2013 Mora County ordinance banning corporate oil and gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing unconstitutional and in violation of the corporate-plaintiff developer’s property rights and the Supremacy Clause under the U.S. Constitution. The law, titled the Mora County Community Water Rights and Local Self-Government Ordinance, banned such activity within a substantially rural county approximately 100 miles northeast of Santa Fe. The Plaintiff is a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell PLC.

Although subject to review by the Tenth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, this federal court’s decision is a setback for local control activists. Judge Browning found that the Ordinance expressly attempted to circumvent corporate rights protected by federal law. In fact, the Ordinance declared that companies “shall not have the rights of ‘persons’ afforded by the United States and New Mexico Constitutions,” including First Amendment rights and due process. Judge Browning noted that the “Defendants’ argument that corporations should not be granted constitutional rights, or that corporate rights should be subservient to people’s rights, are arguments that are best made before the Supreme Court — the only court that can overrule Supreme Court precedent — rather than a district court.” Although the federal court did not find Plaintiff’s “takings” claim to be ripe because Plaintiff had not sought just compensation through a state inverse condemnation action, Judge Browning further found the Ordinance violative of, and impliedly preempted by state law since it would create waste and prohibit activity that New Mexico law allows.
Although state courts in New York and Pennsylvania have ruled in favor of some level of local government control over oil and gas development, decisions rejecting similar oil and gas activity bans were issued in 2014 by Boulder District Court Judge D.D. Mallard, which are now at issue in the Colorado Court of Appeals.