Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has signed a bill into law that would prohibit city and county governments from banning using “fracking” techniques to extract oil and gas from wells inside a city’s limits.
Abbott told reporters that the bill ensured private property owners’ rights. “Ensuring that those who own their property, that it is not going to have the heavy hand of local regulations deprive them of their local private property rights,” he explained.
Abbott added that the second thing that the measure did was try and have uniformity in state regulation. “It ensures that Texas prevents and avoids a patch-work quilt of different regulations that differ from region to region or from county to county or city to city.”
The bill was in response to the City of Denton’s ban on hydraulic fracking inside the city limits or near residential homes, the ban of the first of its kind in Texas. The City was immediately sued by the Texas Oil and Gas Association.
The bill that was signed into law takes effect immediately.
