Texas closer to limiting local say over drilling

OREANDA-NEWS. April 01, 2015. A legislative committee in Texas has approved a bill aimed at preventing local governments from regulating oil and gas drilling by cementing that power with the state.

The bill would preempt the authority of a municipality or other subdivision over oil- and gas-related operations such as hydraulic fracturing and drilling. The state's Energy Resources committee voted 10-1 in favor of the bill, sending it on to the Texas House of Representatives.

Local governments would still have the ability under the proposed legislation to regulate surface activity incidental to oil and gas development like traffic and noise — as long as those measures do not prohibit operations or are not preempted by state or federal law.

The bill was filed in reaction to a November vote in the north Texas city of Denton, which sits atop the prolific Barnett shale gas field, to ban fracturing. The ban immediately triggered legal challenges from the energy industry and criticism from state energy regulators.

The bill would not retroactively overturn existing local restrictions, but it would provide a framework for opponents to challenge those mandates, according to Adam Haynes, a spokesman for Republican representative Jim Keffer, who co-wrote the bill.

A hydraulic fracturing ban is an example of something "that has gone too far and is definitely overboard," Haynes said.

A recent study by Rice University found that local bans would have little impact on the broader US gas market. The "depth and efficiency" of the US gas market would buffer it against potential local policies that seek to limit access to shale gas resources, the authors concluded in the study, which was released in February.