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.

Frack Free Denton’s Adam Briggle and Denton Kevin Councilman Roden made a series of odd claims in their recent op-ed (“Rep. King should bow to local control,” Feb. 22) that undermined their argument.

They said when drilling slows, it has “detrimental economic impacts.” Yet both supported Denton’s fracking ban, which prevents drilling. Briggle has even traveled to Louisiana to encourage others to ban drilling.

Eric Mach | Denton Record Chronicle

February 25, 2015

Shun Al Gore cult

When one reads the letters from the progressive parrots, you can tell that they are elated about the prospect of damaging the city’s economy.

February 23, 2015

Larry J. Fabian

It’s time to set the record straight. Oil and gas development has been ongoing in Mansfield for over 10 years, and the City Council has done a good job of continuously updating our ordinances to keep our community safe and our local economy strong.

As a landowner and mineral owner, I am very concerned with the opposition groups who are pushing for even more regulation and larger setbacks.

February 22, 2015

By Ed Ireland, Ph. D.

A battery of air tests during the simultaneous hydraulic fracturing of 5 Barnett Shale natural gas wells and the subsequent initial flowback period is one of the largest scale air testing projects of its kind.  Modern Geosciences, a respected environmental testing firm that has been doing quarterly and monthly air testing for the Town of Flower Mound for 6 years, conducted the project. The air studies in Mansfield were requested by the operator of the wells, Beacon E&P, a Colorado based company that has offices in Fort Worth and operations in the Barnett Shale region in North Texas.

February 6, 2015

By Jim Malewitz

David Craig Pearson remembers the first time he felt the earth tremble beneath his feet. Mother Nature wasn’t to blame. The U.S. military was. 

Pearson stood on the White Sands Missile Range, a sprawling base in south-central New Mexico, on that day some three decades ago. Federal Department of Defense workers fired off a weapons test. Pearson, then a wide-eyed doctoral student, recorded the earthquake it triggered. 

“Since then, I was hooked,” he said in an interview.

There is this odd debate over vaccinations which questions the effectiveness and the safety vaccines.. The anti-vaxxer crowd has on its side nothing except bad science and a lot of emotion but that hasn’t stopped a “debate” from occurring about whether we should be vaccinating our kids. An epidemic of measles however seems to be turning the tide of the argument.

What does that debate have to do with energy? Bad science just keeps appearing everywhere propelled by powerful emotions.