McAlister, Oklahoma, has had a ban on oil drilling within its city limits since 1974. But now Governor Mary Fallin has signed controversial legislation outlawing municipal drilling bans, and the mayor of this small town in southeastern Oklahoma isn’t happy, reports KOSU. In fact, he wrote a eulogy for the death of his town’s 41-year old drilling ban, referring to the ordinance by the name “Ordie.” The requiem reads, in part, “Ordie . . . never caused trouble for anyone while he was here. Leastwise, I never heard a complaint.”
Oklahoma instituted the law after Texas enacted similar legislation, in response to an ordinance in Denton, Texas, that banned fracking within the city limits. “We can’t have a barbershop or a beauty salon in a residential area, but now we’re supposed to allow oil wells,” the mayor lamented.
