Over the last two weeks, we've shared our 15-part multimedia series on how the state's explosive oil and gas growth is changing lives and fortunes across Texas. Take a look back at the Shale Life project in its entirety — the result of a crowd-funding drive and six months of reporting by more than a dozen journalists. 

While drilling for oil and gas has exploded across Texas, residents and environmental advocates allege that state regulators haven't kept up with complaints about negative health effects. Regulators say they've stepped up enforcement, but dispute that airborne emissions from oil and gas drilling pose a threat to health. This story is part of our Shale Life project. 

Just hours after Denton voted to ban hydraulic fracturing, the state’s General Land Office and biggest petroleum group filed off legal challenges to the new rule. The Texas Oil and Gas Association called the ban unconstitutional, saying it supercedes state law and deprives mineral owners of their property rights.

A North Texas town on Tuesday became the state’s first city to ban hydraulic fracturing, setting up a high profile property clash likely to be fought in courtrooms and the Legislature.

The oil and gas industry almost singlehandedly lifted Texas from the country’s last recession. But such booms come with unsettling questions: How long will the bonanza last? And will an eventual drop in oil prices decimate local economies — as has happened throughout Texas’ history? This story is part of our Shale Life project. 

Where there’s oil and natural gas, there’s money to be made and jobs to be found. But the challenges these dramatic booms present for communities across South and West Texas are immense. Use our 15-part multimedia series — the result of more than six months of reporting from the state's most active shale plays — to see how surging energy production is changing lives and fortunes across Texas. 

The Railroad Commission's new chairman on the agency's dual role as an industry watchdog and champion, the push to ban fracking in Denton and the commission’s efforts on earthquakes and disposal wells.

Two candidates for the Railroad Commission welcomed the agency's newly proposed requirements for disposal well applications, saying they were a good first step in addressing the spate of earthquakes that have shaken up parts of North Texas.

The Dallas-Fort Worth region boasts a growing economy larger than that of many countries — but it also sports some of the worst air quality in the nation. Scientists fear the politics of economic growth is preventing improvements.

The Texas Railroad Commission has hired a seismologist to research the oil and gas industry's ties to the spate of earthquakes that has rattled North Texans.

UPDATED: A group of concerned Denton residents says it has gathered enough signatures to put a proposed city ban on hydraulic fracturing on the November ballot. 

The state doesn't track the use of acid in oil and gas drilling operations in Texas, but industry researchers have expressed concerns for years over possible dangers to workers and the environment. Read the full story at StateImpact Texas.

Texas' anti-regulation stance may have hurt business when the state refused to issue required greenhouse permits for almost two years. Energy companies had to delay large industry facilities that needed the permits. As a result, they say, they have been unable to take full advantage of the area's shale boom.

The Texas Railroad Commission said it would hire a seismologist to research the link between earthquakes and disposal of oil and gas waste in injection wells.

A growing number of North Texas mineral owners — including the cities of Arlington and Fort Worth — are suing oil and gas companies, alleging that they have been shortchanged millions of dollars in royalty payments that the companies deducted to cover postproduction costs. 

Dallas has significantly tightened its drilling rules, following years of debate about what natural gas production should look like inside its city limits — if it comes at all. On Wednesday, the city council established a 1,500-foot setback between “protected use” areas like homes, businesses and churches and new rigs and compressor stations, one that matches a requirement in the suburb of Flower Mound as the strictest in North Texas.

At this morning's TribLive conversation, Railroad Commission Chairman Barry Smitherman talked about the economic impact of the state's various shale plays, as well as concerns about the negative effects on roads, water and air quality.

In a Texas House Appropriations Committee hearing this morning, natural gas producers fought back against suggestions that a major tax exemption they receive for "high-cost drilling," such as the hydraulic fracturing that occurs in the Barnett Shale, be rolled back.