Two women await the results of a referendum banning fracking in Denton, Texas,
last November. The city's aye votes won, but the state legislature and governor said nay.
When the residents of Denton, Texas, voted 59-41 percent to impose a ban on hydraulic fracturing in their community, the howls of industry and their legislator marionettes could be heard statewide.
The industry's lawyers got busy and sued Denton, population 113,000. There are 270 nearby wells where hydraulic fracturing—"fracking"—is used to pry natural gas from a tight shale formation. The state legislature, which usually makes a big deal oratorically about local control, got busy and crafted HB 40, a bill that would stop Denton and any other Texas municipality from passing fracking bans, by referendum or other means, against a "prudent operator."
Or rather, former ExxonMobil lawyer Shannon Ratliff got busy and drafted the bill's language.
The argument of the backers is that HB 40 goes for a balanced approach and that allowing municipalities to ban fracking would create a patchwork of rules across Texas that would be harmful to the oil and gas drilling business that put $12 billion into state coffers last year. The Barnett formation in the Denton area is one of two highly productive shale deposits in the state. Without fracking, industry says, the formation would be commercially undrillable.
HB 40 cleared the legislature and, on Monday, Gov. Greg Abbott signed it into law. Now, no community can prohibit fracking unless it can prove its ban is "commercially reasonable." Naturally, activists aren't happy:
“HB 40 was written by the oil and gas industry, for the oil and gas industry, to prevent voters from holding the oil and gas industry accountable for its impacts,” said Earthworks’ Texas organizer Sharon Wilson. Wilson, who played a key role in the Denton ballot initiative, continued, “It was the oil and gas industry’s contempt for impacted residents that pushed Denton voters to ban fracking in the first place. And now the oil and gas industry, through state lawmakers, has doubled down by showing every city in Texas that same contempt.” [...]
“By signing HB40 into law, Governor Abbott just declared that industry profits are more important than our health, our homes and our kids,” said Adam Briggle, President of the Denton Drilling Awareness Group and a leader in the Frack Free Denton effort. He continued, “The letter of Texas law now says no city can ‘effectively prevent an oil and gas operation from occurring’, no matter the threat to families’ health and safety or damage to private property.“
There is more below the fold.
Residents of Denton have registered many complaints about the noise, the dirt and the pollution they say is caused by fracking, as well as the nosebleeds and nausea they say afflicts them because of the chemicals that are used. Max B. Baker reports:
Luke Metzger, director of Environment Texas, said HB40 keeps local governments from adopting many health and safety protections to limit the impacts of oil and gas operations. The group said it will undermine ordinances in 300 communities.
“Gov. Abbott has succeeded in seizing power away from local governments working to protect us from the real dangers of dirty drilling,” Metzger said.
HB 40 isn't the only legislative effort in Texas aimed at stopping municipalities from protecting people's health and safety. Another bill, House Bill 2595, would “restrict the right of a person to use or access” their private property for economic gain. David Weinberg, executive director of the Texas League of Conservation Voters, told the Fort Worth
Star-Telegram, “It seems the 84th Legislature can’t go far enough in gutting local control."
Proving once again that the right believes in local control right up to the minute it impinges on some powerful somebody's bottom line.