AUSTIN - Oil and gas companies putting Texas awash in money moved closer Friday to stopping cities from banning fracking, an early victory for Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and his sights on what he calls runaway local overregulation.
The Texas House, which Republicans control by a 2-to-1 margin, overwhelmingly passed a bill that would effectively prohibit cities and counties from denying access to natural gas goldmines underground.
A scramble to change the law comes months after voters in Denton, a university town near Dallas, imposed a hydraulic fracturing ban to keep encroaching drilling bonanzas outside their city limits.
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Aren't Abbott and his cronies the same guys that keep crying about big government over reach? These people voted to ban fracking, no Czar or whatever mandated it.
Why should a city be allowed to ban fracking and prohibit me from entering, using, or gaining value from my minerals?
Cities set codes, issue permits and other restrictions on real property, businesses etc. that they feel best serves that community. They didn't ban access to minerals, just the technique. I'd like some of my mineral interest to be in a better place to be produced, but they are not.
But by banning a specific technique (such as hydraulic fracturing) they are essentially banning drilling and production on a large amount of minerals in this state, in turn making them worthless. If I can access my minerals but not extract them, that is still worthless. Why are you opposed to urban drilling? Fort Worth has over 2,000 gas wells in the city limits.
I'm not. I wouldn't want a hydraulic fracturing rig operating near my house and it seems like the folks in Denton didn't want it either. Ft. Worth and the Mid-Cities are having there issues, too. I was just more amused at the hypocrisy of our bought and paid for state government. Not looking to make a big deal of it.