Texas Governor Signals Intent to Block Municipal Rules on Fracking
Christopher Halloran / Shutterstock.com
Legislation to restrict local control in the Lone Star State gets thumbs up from Greg Abbott
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced Monday that he plans to sign H.B. 40, legislation that would block municipal governments from passing local bans on the controversial energy-extraction technique known as fracking.
Residents in one North Texas city, Denton, had passed a local ballot initiative last November banning hydraulic fracturing, the drilling process where water and chemicals are injected into underground at high pressure to more easily extract oil and gas from shale formations deep in the earth.
Abbott’s approval of the legislation, which had an easy passage through the Republican-controlled state House and Senate, had been expected. The conservative governor has been vocal with his disapproval of various municipal regulations that he said have “California-ized” the Lone Star State.
Those local regulations included Denton’s fracking ban but also other municipal rules for single-use plastic bags and restrictions on what landowners can do with trees on their property. In January before his inauguration, Abbott described those local rules as “a form of collectivism,” according to the Dallas Morning News.
As the Star-Telegram in Fort Worth reports, other cities with drilling-specific regulations on the books are watching the impacts of the new law as well:
The new state law includes a four-part test for allowing cities to regulate drilling operations above ground, such as emergency response, noise and setbacks. But the law says those controls must be “economically reasonable” and can’t hinder or prohibit the work of a “prudent operator.”
To provide some comfort to cities with longstanding ordinances, such as Fort Worth, the bill contains a “safe harbor” provision that says any ordinance or other measure in effect for five years that has allowed drilling should be considered commercially reasonable.
City officials have complained that the law erodes municipal powers and is too ambiguous.
The legislative action at the Texas State Capitol to restrict certain types of local government regulations is being echoed in other capital cities around the United States. In Missouri, for instance, Republican lawmakers have pushed legislation that would block municipal governments from enacting local rules on single-use plastic bags.
As the Associated Press reports, that bill, which could be vetoed by Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon, has other provisions impacting local control: “It also would also prohibit local governments from requiring businesses to provide employees paid sick leave, vacation or health, disability and retirement benefits,” according to the AP. “And it would block cities and counties from adopting their own ‘living wage’ requirements.”
(Photo by Christopher Halloran / Shutterstock.com)
NEXT STORY: NY pilots program to teach English via mobile phones