As reported at Fulbright & Jaworski’s Hydraulic Fracking blog, on May 2, 2013, the New York State Supreme Court upheld local fracking bans in the towns of Dryden and Middlefield, New York. The court affirmed lower court decisions from 2012 that certain amendments to town zoning ordinances are not preempted by New York State’s Oil, Gas and Solution Mining Law. Both decisions are of course expected to be appealed.

A recent Bloomberg article also discusses the controversy regarding local fracking bans.

For news on the other side of the country, Kelley Drye & Warren’s Fracking Insider regularly posts a State Regulatory Roundup, and the most recent edition covers recent regulatory activity in Nevada, New Mexico, and California. We’ll be interested to see the water rights issues continue to develop here in the west.