New report lifts curtain on who bankrolls anti-fracking activism in Texas

Activists use deceptive advocacy like “local control” to mask radical “Keep It In the Ground” agenda

The fracking revolution boosts local economies by increasing average incomes, creating jobs, and raising local housing prices, according to a new study from the University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute (EPIC).

Five-year study finds no evidence that hydraulic fracturing has caused widespread pollution of groundwater.

Natural gas power plants deliver the lowest-cost electricity for residents of North Texas, according to new research from the University of Texas at Austin. The findings show that natural gas is also the most competitive option for the other major metro areas in the state, including Houston, Austin, San Antonio, and El Paso.

Bloomberg News

The biggest beneficiaries of OPEC's decision to shrink oil production will include its most implacable enemies: U.S. shale drillers. After a 2 1/2-year price war in which the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries sought to starve shale explorers and other high-cost producers into submission, the group agreed Wednesday to curb output by 1.2 million barrels a day.

The Wolfcamp Shale formation in West Texas holds 20 billion barrels of recoverable oil, according to a new assessment from the United States Geological Survey.  The finding represents the “largest estimate of continuous oil” that the agency has ever assessed in the United States.

A national ban on fracking would eliminate nearly 15 million jobs all across the country, according to research published today by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for 21st Century Energy (Energy 21). Texas would suffer a particularly severe blow, with job loss figures estimated as high as 1.5 million.

Methane emissions in several major Texas oil and gas fields are declining, according to new data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The news comes as the EPA is pursuing costly new methane regulations for oil and natural gas activities, which analysts have warned could wipe out many producers in Texas and all across the country.