In their efforts to regulate the wells that hold Texas' oilfield waste, state officials have found a surprising ally in the federal Environmental Protection Agency, long a political punching bag in Texas. 

UPDATED: Texas Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples confirmed he has been selected to head up the Texas Oil and Gas Association – the state’s largest and oldest petroleum group. He will leave his current post early. 

For mineral owners, making sure oil and gas operators pay what they promise can prove incredibly difficult, as shown in a case the Texas Supreme Court will soon decide.

In an email blast on Wednesday, Libertarian Railroad Commission candidate Mark Miller said the Denton anti-fracking effort “results from a failure of government to assert its primary roles to protect individual rights and to resolve conflicts.”

Oil and gas activities – but not hydraulic fracturing – tainted drinking water wells atop North Texas’ Barnett Shale and Pennsylvania’s Marcellus formation, according to a new study.  

Steve Brown, a Democratic candidate for Texas railroad commissioner, has called on regulators to completely halt the permitting of disposal wells for hydraulic fracturing water by 2020 — a bold proposal that one of his opponents dubbed “naïve.”

Texas Railroad Commissioner David Porter on Monday became the second of the state's three oil and gas regulators to raise concerns that Russia is waging a misinformation campaign against hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking.

Texas now has 104 natural gas fueling stations, according to a map released Monday by the Railroad Commission of Texas. That’s nearly 50 more than Texas had last year. Meanwhile, 67 more stations are set to open in 2015.

A tainted water well in North Texas has already stirred national debate about the impacts of oil and gas production. Now it stars in a free speech dispute that has landed in the Texas Supreme Court.

Less than eight months after breaking ground, the company constructing one of the state’s largest solar plants says it has begun harnessing West Texas’ intense rays.

After a drawn-out competition, Texas has lost out on Tesla Motors' $5 billion lithium-ion battery plant, according to a news report. CNBC reports that the upscale electric carmaker had chosen the Silver State to be home to its “gigafactory.” 

Texas should have more than enough electricity to keep its lights on this fall and winter, the operator of the grid covering most of the state says.   

In a sarcastic web ad released Thursday, the Democratic National Committee tried to push back against the positive spin Gov. Rick Perry has put on his indictment.  

In West Texas, oil and gas development is surging, but it's also fueling a huge demand for electricity that the current infrastructure struggles to meet. The result? A congested grid and higher electricity bills for consumers. 

Gov. Rick Perry has attacked the premise of his indictment as politically motivated “farce.” At Republican gatherings in the crucial primary state of New Hampshire, where Perry is testing public opinion ahead of a possible presidential run, some folks wore that viewpoint – literally.