Big Oil Moves to Halt TX Fracking Ban

The Texas Oil & Gas Association, the state’s energy lobby, has filed for an injunction on a ban on fracking that voters in the North Texas city of Denton approved Tuesday. “A ban on hydraulic fracturing is inconsistent with state law,” said Thomas Phillips, a former head of the state supreme court who now represents the trade group. The state’s top energy regulator also said the prohibition should be tossed out, because it is based on “misinformation.” Denton became the first Texas city to outlaw the oil and gas extraction technique behind the U.S. energy boom. The vote in the city of 123,000 was highly symbolic, because fracking is widely used in Texas, the country’s top producer of crude—and Denton is said to be the place where the process was invented.