New piece at Slate by my friend & colleague  Adam Briggle.

For a while, it looked like we were scraping the bottom of Earth’s barrel of fossil fuels. Then along came hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and horizontal drilling, and now some argue that we might never run out of the stuff, though not everyone agrees. But as exploitation of oil and gas has intensified, so has opposition.

The most significant resistance is coming from the towns and cities that are becoming sacrifice zones in the wake of corporate profits and the national quest for energy independence. Local government is the one entity that might throw a wrench in the works, because they actually have some legal power. The burning question is: How much power?

via Norse Energy Corp. v. Town of Dryden: Court upholds New York town’s fracking ban..