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The mayor of a North Texas city that banned fracking says a key part of the city’s drilling ordinance was not based on health or safety concerns, contradicting what he and other local officials have used to defend those rules. The comments also raise additional questions about the legality of the ordinance under state law.

Letter to the Editor: Taxpayers Deserve to Know Cost | By: Denton Resident Phillip Sweet, Denton Record-Chronicle | May 20, 2015 The 2015 Notice of Appraised Value from the Denton Central Appraisal District just arrived. Our house appraised tax keeps increasing year after year. How can Denton keep expenses under control? How much is Denton’s fracking ban actually costing us?

Letter to the Editor: Voice of Reason | Texas Royalty Council President Tricia Davis, Denton Record-Chronicle | May 19, 2015 When elected officials make policy decisions after careful consideration and sound reasoning, it’s discouraging to see them harshly criticized with misinformed and unfair attacks, like we’re seeing happen with Rep. Myra Crownover.

Denton’s ban on hydraulic fracturing has been in the news quite a bit recently, but there’s an issue that has been lost in much of that debate: taxes.

Scientists: Fracking Is Not Causing Earthquakes | By: Michael Bastasch, Daily Caller News Foundation | May 6, 2015 Earthquakes are on the rise in Oklahoma and Texas, and media reports have made sure to link hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, operations to quakes rocking parts of the country. But connecting fracking to earthquakes is frustrating scientists working on the issue. “We’re not talking at all about fracking,” Dr. Matthew Hornback, a scientist at Southern Methodist University who recently released a study on quakes in North Texas, told Congress Tuesday.

Scientists from Southern Methodist University (SMU) say it’s “driving us crazy” that the press wrongly blames fracking for North Texas earthquakes. SMU’s research has focused on wastewater disposal. “We’re not talking at all about fracking,” they added.

It’s no secret that there’s a political campaign underway in the United States to ban fracking, a technology that has unlocked enormous supplies of natural gas. Critics claim that we can stop using natural gas, and instead rely on wind and solar. There are big problems with that, but it also ignores a pretty important fact: there are tons of products in our everyday lives that are made from natural gas. As it turns out, natural gas is an important building block for manufacturing, allowing the creation of everything from plastics to medicine. Here are 25 of those products.

Eugene, a community leader in North Texas, has a compelling story about why he supports and prefers natural gas: "Besides the fact that it's a clean product, I believe that the future of natural gas is tremendous."

By Christopher Martin Carbon dioxide emissions will slip to the lowest since 1994 as U.S. utilities shift away from coal in favor of solar, wind and natural gas.

Today, scientists from Southern Methodist University, the University of Texas, and the U.S. Geological Survey released a new research paper in the journal Nature Communications, entitled “Causal factors for seismicity near Azle, Texas.” Through a process of elimination, the researchers concluded that “brine production combined with wastewater disposal represent the most likely cause of recent seismicity near Azle.” However, several issues in the paper raise questions about its conclusion, including potentially major flaws related to subsurface pressure.

In recent years, opponents of natural gas production in North Texas have argued that drilling reduces home values. Frack Free Denton claimed “fracking has been shown to decrease nearby residential property values” as part of its number one reason to ban fracking. Mansfield Gas Well Awareness states on its home page that drilling in Mansfield “is a threat” to property values. Earthworks and the activist website EcoWatch have also said fracking decreases property values.

The anti-energy group Environment Texas (ET) recently unveiled a letter to Governor Greg Abbott, Senator Troy Fraser and Representative Drew Darby, which makes a series of misleading and erroneous claims about two bills under consideration in Austin - HB 40 and SB 1165 - and the facts surrounding hydraulic fracturing (fracking).

Texas has always been fiercely protective of its prerogatives as a state. From challenging federal regulatory overreach in court to maintaining our own electric grid, we are willing to go to great lengths to ensure we can chart our own political destiny.

March 23, 2015 BY ROBERT CADWALLADER MANSFIELD-- After a final public hearing, the Mansfield City Council Monday night unanimously approved tighter restrictions on gas well drilling but did not widen the city’s 600-foot minimum separation between gas and oil wells and the public. The 6-0 vote, with Councilman Stephen Lindsey absent, culminates more than a year of public debate over how to protect against nuisance and potential health risks without stifling oil and gas development — and inviting litigation. The mix of 25 speakers was almost evenly divided on the issue, as were the 19 resident nonspeakers who put their opinions on cards.

March 20, 2015 By Dee Davey Mansfield is a great place to live. Money Magazine is one of the latest to rank Mansfield as one of the best places to live in America. Our strong economy attracts thousands of new residents, many of whom have started new businesses here. But listening to some local activists, things in Mansfield are not so great. They claim natural gas drilling has reduced property values and ruined our quality of life. I’ve been in Mansfield for 39 years and for long-time residents like me, we’ve watched Mansfield grow from a small quiet town and to continue on as a great hometown for the new neighbors who have moved here.

March 20, 2015 By Kim McCaslin Schlieker Citizens for Mansfield is a group of local residents, landowners, business owners and mineral owners who believe that excessive and unnecessary gas drilling regulations would hurt Mansfield and threaten our private property rights. Citizens for Mansfield is a different group with a different perspective than the Mansfield Gas Well Awareness group.

March 19, 2015 By James Quintero Nanny-state rules and regulations are beginning to sprout up in towns and communities across the Lone Star State. Local attempts to micromanage people’s daily lives run the gamut from prohibiting the use of single-use plastic bags to infringing on private property owners’ ability to trim trees on their land to controlling how and where people can use ridesharing services like Uber and Lyft. Interestingly, most of these local restrictions are being defended on the grounds of “local control.” But where this line of reasoning gets it wrong is that it presumes local control ought to be the goal of policy making. Local control is a means to an end. To the extent that it can achieve or secure people’s natural rights to life, liberty and property, then it is to be commended. It is improper, however, to suggest that local control should be used as a kind of shield with which to infringe upon people’s liberties.

March 17, 2015 By Nathan Wesely, president, West GulfMaritime Association, Houston Regarding "Oil prices may hurt LNG exports" (Page D1, Thursday), declining oil prices mean Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) exports are even more critical to maintaining America's energy renaissance. Global demand for U.S. natural gas remains strong and these projects will provide long-term certainty for investment and jobs across the energy and port industries.

March 12, 2015 By State Rep. Matt Rinaldi Just before his inauguration, Gov. Greg Abbott warned: "Texas is being Californianized, and you may not even be noticing it. It’s being done at the city level with bag bans, fracking bans, tree-cutting bans. We’re forming a patchwork quilt of bans and rules and regulations that is eroding the Texas model." Responding to Abbott’s call, I filed House Bill 1939 to repeal bag bans and surcharges like those enacted by Dallas and Austin, which erode consumer choice and the rights of business owners. Other bills filed in the Legislature this session seek to undo city ordinances that allow red-light cameras, restrict landlords’ ability to choose tenants or infringe on religious freedom.

March 5, 2015 By Todd Staples The oil and gas industry’s economic impact on Texas has reached historic levels. In 2014, Texas oil and natural gas delivered a record $15.7 billion in state and local taxes and royalties, the highest such collection from the oil and gas industry in Texas history. Beyond its iconic imagery, the oil and gas industry has a long and continuing legacy of providing billions of dollars in tax revenue each year that directly funds our schools, roads, first responders, essential public services and more.

February 27, 2015 By State Representative Phil King We’ve heard a lot about hydraulic fracking in North Texas, especially after Denton banned the process. As many legal experts attest, that ban runs afoul of state law and puts local taxpayers on the hook for legal bills as the city defends itself in court. But there’s a more fundamental problem with local fracking bans. They threaten something all Texans cherish: private property rights.