Last week, we reported that the city of Fort Collins, Colorado banned natural gas fracking, but now bigger powers may force them to overturn that decision.
Will the town give in to Colorado’s governor, who immediately threatened to sue? John Hickenlooper, in a televised interview, says he will direct the state to sue Fort Collins to force them to overturn the ban.
Colorado’s Oil and Gas Association also plans to sue, after apologizing and attempting to retract a fraudulent petition supposedly signed by 55 local businesses who were against the ban.
On March 5, the Fort Collins council must hold a final vote for the fracking ban to become law – will they have the courage to allow the law to go through?
Hickenlooper, a former oilman, wants oil drilling and fracking across Colorado.
But does that mean towns and cities don’t have the right to local government rule?
Hickenlooper says he’ll take any and all towns and cities to court that try to ban oil and gas drilling within their borders. So far, he’s sued the city of Longmont for banning fracking.
"The bottom line is, someone paid money to buy mineral rights under that land," he told CBS News. "You can’t harvest the mineral rights without doing hydraulic fracturing, which I think we’ve demonstrated again and again can be done safely."
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