{"id":271703,"date":"2026-08-25T05:00:20","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T05:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/271703\/"},"modified":"2026-08-25T05:00:20","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T05:00:20","slug":"why-eries-council-will-vote-on-sm-energy-sale-ordinance-even-after-company-pulled-out-of-deal-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/271703\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Erie’s council will vote on SM Energy sale ordinance, even after company pulled out of deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Erie Town Council on Tuesday night is expected to vote on whether to repeal the ordinance connected to its now-scrubbed mineral rights sale with SM Energy, after the oil and gas operator notified the town last week<\/a> that it has opted not to continue the deal.<\/p>\n

The council had approved the ordinance in late June to sell some town-owned mineral rights, an agreement that would have allowed SM Energy to access those minerals from its planned Draco Pad just outside the town.<\/p>\n

Erie residents who opposed the SM Energy deal last month gathered enough signatures<\/a> to put the issue up to voters. If the Town Council votes to repeal the ordinance this week, it would close that petition process.<\/p>\n

Repealing the ordinance would also allow the town to act as a party of interest in any upcoming hearings on the Draco Pad with the state Energy and Carbon Management Commission, according to town spokesperson Gabi Rae.<\/p>\n

SM Energy can continue forward with drilling Draco, even without the access to the town\u2019s mineral rights that the deal would have provided.\u00a0But without the mineral rights deal, under recently enacted state law, SM Energy will now have to redraw its drilling plan to avoid those mineral rights \u2014 which amount to 2.7% of the total Draco drilling area.<\/p>\n

\u201cSM Energy is obligated not to touch them,\u201d Erie Mayor Andrew Moore said last week.<\/p>\n

Allowing Erie to become a party in the state commission\u2019s hearings, he added, would \u201censure that our minerals are not produced.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt gives us the right to participate if for any reason \u2014\u00a0and I don\u2019t even know what those reasons may be, but for whatever reason \u2014 we have a seat at the table, if something does come up that impacts our minerals,\u201d Moore said.<\/p>\n

Repealing the ordinance is, ultimately, also a matter of housekeeping, according to Rae.<\/p>\n

\u201cOrdinances have to be approved and repealed by Council,\u201d she said in an email. \u201cThat is outlined in the Town Charter. This is how communities end up with really old, random laws on the books\u2026 because they were things the elected body just never repealed.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Erie Town Council on Tuesday night is expected to vote on whether to repeal the ordinance connected…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":271704,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[1675,60,1676,6838,136,138,137,1677,241,139,50,1680],"class_list":["post-271703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-boulder-county","tag-business","tag-colorado","tag-east-county","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news","tag-front-range","tag-latest-headlines","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-weld-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271703\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}