A federal lawsuit has been filed by the Woodward family in Delaware County challenging the ban on the grounds that New York has taken away their private property rights in violation of the Fifth Amendment.

“New York’s fracking ban paints prosperity and environmental responsibility as mutually exclusive,” says the Pacific Legal Foundation, which is representing the family. “But that’s a false choice – and a costly one, forcing individual New Yorkers like the Woodwards to bear the weight of a manufactured scarcity.”

There are 14 “Twin Tier” counties that straddle the border used to be virtually identical in every way. But Pennsylvania has allowed hydraulic fracking for oil and gas while New York has basically banned it since 2008. Environmental crazies convinced then Governor Andrew Cuomo to impose a full fracking ban in 2014 after warning it would cause earthquakes, toxic drinking water and higher cancer rates.

None of those problems have surfaced in Pennsylvania, but New York’s side of the border has clearly stagnated. A Heritage Foundation report finds that New York’s seven counties have an average GDP per capita that’s $27,000 per household less than their counterparts in Pennsylvania. Electricity costs are 25% to 50% higher on the New York side.

New Yorkers are paying the price of anti-fracking fanaticism via higher electricity prices, which politicians would rather blame on data centers. Barring the extraction of natural gas in perpetuity has limited the state’s energy options and made it and its residents poorer.

We can only hope that the Woodward lawsuit gets a fair hearing and raises awareness of just how much New York is engaging in an act of economic masochism.