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http://truth-out.org/news/item/29485-since-the-city-of-denton-banned-fracking-texas-gop-moves-to-pre-empt-local-control
Carol Soph, a board member of the Denton Drilling Awareness Group, the driving force behind Denton's fracking ban, speaks with Rep. Phil King about her concerns regarding a bill he introduced in response to the Denton ban that would gut cities' ability to introduce similar measures or regulations. King is this year's national chair of the American Legislative Exchange Council. (Photo: Candice Bernd)
""I do feel very strongly that air-quality measures and the engineering and scientific issues of oil and gas should be regulated at the state level, where the expertise is," Texas Rep. Phil King (R-Weatherford) told a group of North Texans Monday, March 2, during a meeting in his Capitol office about a bill he introduced that would create barriers to a city's ability to regulate the oil and gas industry.
The room was largely filled with people from Denton, which passed Texas' first ban on hydraulic fracturing (fracking) within city limits. Since the ban passed last fall in a landslide victory, state lawmakers connected to the oil and gas industry and to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) have introduced a number of bills aimed at undermining local democracy, ostensibly to prevent other cities from following Denton's lead.
Activists, however, says these bills would effectively kill local democracy so that citizens would lose the ability to introduce ballot referendums, and local governments would be unable to regulate industry to protect the health and safety of residents.
"The reason that we're here is because the state did a terrible job. That's why the opposition [to oil and gas drilling] is growing," said Sharon Wilson, a Gulf coast organizer with Earthworks, in response to King's assessment.
King continued to assert his confidence in state oil and gas regulators and told the group he plans to move forward with his bills. One of the bills would allow the state to reject a municipal ordinance and the other would require a city to assess the tax revenue cost of any attempt to regulate oil and gas...
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"...King's bills are part of a wider strategy emerging in Republican-dominated state legislatures this year to curtail municipalities' regulatory authority, including their ability to pass local ordinances and citizen-led ballot referendums. The legislation often comes at the behest of industries that stand to lose money because of regulations initiated in the municipalities where they operate.
According to The New York Times, eight states led by Republicans have prohibited municipalities from passing paid sick day legislation in just the past two years. Other such preemption laws have barred cities from raising the minimum wage and regulating the activities of landlords. This year, Arkansas passed a law that blocks a city's ability to pass anti-discrimination laws that would protect LGBT people, and bills introduced in six states this session would follow Arkansas' lead..."
