Denton responds to fracking ban lawsuit

Game on.

One day before its first-in-Texas ban on hydraulic fracturing is set to take effect, Denton called the oil and gas extraction technique a “public nuisance” that the North Texas town has the right to regulate.

“Those activities have caused conditions that are subversive of public order and constitute an obstruction of public rights of the community as a whole,” Denton’s attorneys wrote in a legal brief filed Monday. “Such conditions include, but are not limited to, noise, increased heavy truck traffic, liquid spills, vibrations and other offensive results.”

The argument came in the city’s two-page response to a lawsuit filed by the Texas Oil and Gas Association just hours after Denton voters overwhelmingly approved a ban on hydraulic fracturing – widely known as fracking – on election night Nov. 4.

Texas’ largest petroleum group is asking a Denton County district court to declare the ban invalid and unenforceable, saying it infringes on the state’s right to regulate drilling – and mineral owners’ right to develop their resources.

[…]

In its response, Denton said the petroleum group did not identify specific state regulations that make its ban unconstitutional.

“The suit is premised on the [Railroad Commission of Texas] completely occupying the field of regulation,” said Jim Bradbury, a Fort Worth-based lawyer who focuses on environmental and energy issues. “Denton is rightly seeking to have them identify the actual regulations that supposedly occupy the field.”

See here for the background. That was written Monday – the ban went into effect yesterday, and as far as I could tell from a news search last night, has not been enjoined by a judge. Denton’s response to the TXOGA lawsuit is here. There was apparently a second suit filed by the General Land Office (GLO press release here) at the same time, alleging that the Denton ban prevents the GLO from performing its constitutional duty to maximize revenues from leasing public school lands; Denton’s response to that suit is here. I’m not a lawyer and I’m not going to try to evaluate the merits of these claims, I’m just looking forward to seeing what the courts do with them.

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