Two years ago Texas’ booming Barnett Shale region was facing a slew of challenges that came along with increased oil and gas drilling. Heavy drilling trucks were destroying the roads, employees were getting poached from their everyday jobs to go work on the rigs, and residents of North Texas worried about what kind of impact all that drilling was having on the environment.
Those problems persist. But as the price of natural gas has declined, much of the drilling activity has moved south, to the Eagle Ford Shale region, where drillers can extract more valuable crude oil and liquids from the ground.
Photo courtesy of ANTONY DICKSON/AFP/Getty Images)
Workers process shark fins drying in the sun covering the roof of a factory building in Hong Kong on January 2, 2013. A new Texas bill could ban shark fin products and sales in Texas.
Update: On March 5, the Senate version of the shark fin bill got a hearing at the Capitol. Read about that here.Â
Early next month, shark fins will bring a rare mix of folks together at the Texas Capitol.
That’s when Rep. Eddie Lucio, D-Harlingen, Hollywood star (and “Friday Night Lights” alum) Kyle Chandler, his daughter and the Humane Society of the United States will meet to tout Lucio’s recently-filed bill that would, if passed, ban shark fin products in Texas.
“Protecting our sea life has become a critical issue in today’s society. We need to prevent our marine life from being harmed,” said Rep. Lucio in a statement.
A fallow deer watches from the cover of a bracken thicket after sunrise during the autumn rutting season at Richmond Park on October 10, 2011 in London, England. New legislation proposed for Texas would help clarify deer breeding regulations.
Deer breeding as a commercial enterprise is expanding in Texas, and breeders say it’s time to firm up the permitting process.
Sen. Tommy Williams, R-Woodlands, filed a bill this month, SB 820, that could overhaul some permitting for breeders. Gilbert Adams, President of the Texas Deer Association, said as breeding businesses grow across the state, permitting and permit-revocation processes need to be clarified.
“It’s a long-term proposition, raising deer …you’ve got to have some certainty in this business,” Adams said. “This gives the breeder some due-process rights that other professions have had for years.”
At a panel of lawmakers Tuesday evening, legislators offered different takes on how to fix roads damaged by drilling trucks. But they all agreed something needs to be done.
This legislative session lawmakers are considering various ways to manage the oil and gas drilling boom, from reducing tax breaks to encouraging less water use. And at a conversation with several lawmakers hosted by StateImpact Texas Tuesday night, there was bipartisan agreement that something needs to be done on one issue in particular.
Fracking can get a lot of oil and gas out of the ground. But it’s a needy process. Each well can require as much as five million gallons of water to be drilled. That water is often brought to a well site with trucks. A lot of them.
“It has to be hauled in, it has to be hauled out,” State Representative Phil King, R-Weatherford, said at the panel. He represents part of the Barnett Shale region. “To move a full rig unit may take as many as forty truck trips. And on those thin blacktop county roads, it’s tough.”
Road damage from drilling is estimated to have cost counties in South Texas two billion dollars. Democratic State Senator Carlos Uresti, D-San Antonio, who represents large parts of the Eagle Ford shale in South Texas, thinks a fix for the problem should include some state money. Continue Reading →
In a radio ad, Texas Governor Rick Perry disses California as a place where it’s “next to impossible” to build a business.
“Come check out Texas,” Perry implores his listeners.
Some states are taking the governor up on his offer: They’re coming to Texas, but they’re not looking to bring business to the state. Rather, they want to take Texas business back home with them.
One state doing this North Dakota which, like Texas, is enjoying a booming economy thanks to horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing that are freeing up huge quantities of crude oil. Continue Reading →
A truck with the natural gas industry, one of thousands that pass through the area daily, drives through the countryside to a hydraulic fracturing site on January 18, 2012 in Springville, Pennsylvania.
There’s a land grab going on in America, as the advent of drilling techniques like hydraulic fracturing (aka “fracking”) and horizontal drilling unlock domestic deposits of oil and gas that had earlier had not been economical to drill. New numbers collected by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), an environmental group, show the massive amount of land involved.
“At the end of 2011, 70 of the largest oil and gas companies operating in the United States held leases covering at least 141 million net acres of American land—an area approximately the size of California and Florida combined,” the analysis, titled ‘Spreading Like Wildfire,’ says. “This is a minimum number of the acres leased nationwide because we only examined 70 out of hundreds of oil and gas producers in America.”
The report finds that of the 70 companies examined, eight of them were foreign, with leases totaling 8.5 million acres. The largest amount of land belonged to companies like Chesapeake Energy, ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips. “30 companies held at least 1 million acres,” the report says. Continue Reading →
State Rep. Eddie Lucio III spoke at the 2013 Ag Water Forum in Austin.
When the 2013 Texas Ag Water Forum met today, it was no coincidence it met just a few blocks from the State Capitol. As lawmakers grapple with how to fund the State Water Plan, agricultural groups worry that their water needs might be sidelined this legislative session.
There is an emerging consensus among legislators that the state should take around two billion dollars from the Texas Rainy Day Fund to put towards water projects. The Senate bill to do that designates ten percent of the money for rural use, but the House bill does not. The feeling among many of those at the forum was that both bills should set aside funds for rural projects.
“There has to be a way to marry the needs of both agriculture and municipal use, because in reality, they’re married to one another, and it’s just through policy and funding that we do that,” Democratic State Representative Eddie Lucio III, who represents agricultural regions in the Rio Grande Valley told StateImpact Texas.
The rise of drilling techniques like hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," has led to new economic prosperity as well as concern. What's the legislature to do? Join us Tuesday, Feb. 26th on the UT Austin campus for a panel discussion.
What role will state lawmakers have in shaping the current oil and gas drilling boom?
Please join us and a panel of several state lawmakers in Austin tonight, Tuesday, Feb. 26 for some answers. We’ll talk about how the historic increase in drilling has impacted different parts of the state and what role lawmakers could play in regulating the rapid increase in drilling. The panel will feature State Senators Rodney Ellis and Carlos Uresti and State Representatives Phil King and Van Taylor, moderated by Mose Buchele of StateImpact Texas.
We’ll look at issues like economic and environmental impacts, road damage and traffic, water use and property rights. And you’ll have the opportunity to ask your own questions of the lawmakers during an audience Q&A at the end of the panel.
The event takes place tonight in the 2nd floor auditorium of the Belo Center for New Media on the University of Texas at Austin campus, at the corner of Dean Keeton and Guadalupe. (And if you can’t join us in person, stay tuned here — we’ll be posting videos from the panel in the days following the event.)
This event is free and open to the public. Doors at 6 pm, and it begins at 6:30. You can RSVP on Facebook here.
Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images for Texas Motor Speedway
Rosemont 6th Grade School students help employees from Texas Motor Speedway work to refurbish an educational garden and plant trees at Rosemont 6th Grade School on December 14, 2010 in Fort Worth, Texas. (
A good garden is much about keeping the right things in as it is keeping the wrong things out. In: rich soil, tended rows and the right amounts of sunlight and water. Out: weeds, deer, Bunnicula. And for one state lawmaker, add to that list of noxious intruders something unexpected: lawsuits.
A bill recently introduced by Rep. Borris L. Miles, D-Houston, would protect landowners of community gardens from liability against accidents on the garden.
HB 1652Â would limit the legal responsibility landowners have over what happens on their property, if it is used as a community garden.
The bill would not protect the landowners against negligence, but instead against gardening incidents. Continue Reading →
The bill would require many beverage containers to be refundable, for five or 10 cents each. The money refunded would come from a deposit paid for when the beverages are purchased. A similar “bottle bill” was introduced to the legislature in 2011, but didn’t pass.
The Texas League of Conservation Voters (TLCV) commissioned a report on how the deposit-recycling program could affect the state economy. It says that if the program is implemented, the state could gain 2,300 jobs and reduce beverage container litter by 80 percent.
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