Just back from the Denton County courthouse to get a copy of the city’s answer to the Texas Oil and Gas Association lawsuit against the city’s new ban on hydraulic fracturing. City staff tell me a copy of the answer to the General Land Office’s lawsuit will be in my in-box shortly.
You can see it’s fairly simple, just two pages to say that the “entire field” of regulations from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and the Texas Railroad Commission don’t meet the requirement of fair notice.
Further, the city offers the defense that the citizen’s initiative is not subject to preemption because of the public nuisance fracking brings.
Update: Here’s the answer to the state’s lawsuit. The city has asked for a change of venue.
More details in tomorrow’s newspaper.