{"id":141621,"date":"2014-11-07T14:21:03","date_gmt":"2014-11-07T14:21:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=141621"},"modified":"2014-11-07T14:21:49","modified_gmt":"2014-11-07T14:21:49","slug":"bush-family-inner-circle-play-central-role-lawsuits-denton-texas-fracking-ban","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/politics\/bush-family-inner-circle-play-central-role-lawsuits-denton-texas-fracking-ban\/","title":{"rendered":"Bush Family and Its Inner Circle Play Central Role in Lawsuits Against Denton, Texas Fracking Ban"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On November 4, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.desmogblog.com\/directory\/vocabulary\/8892\">Denton, Texas,<\/a>became the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.desmogblog.com\/2014\/11\/05\/breaking-denton-texas-hit-lawsuits-after-landslide-victory-fracking-ban\">first city in the state to ban<\/a>the process of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.desmogblog.com\/fracking-the-future\/\">hydraulic fracturing (\u201cfracking\u201d)<\/a> when 59 percent of voters cast ballots in favor of the initiative. It did so in the heart of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.desmogblog.com\/directory\/vocabulary\/6162\">Barnett Shale<\/a>\u00a0basin, where <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2013\/07\/27\/george-p-mitchell-dies_n_3662253.html\" target=\"_blank\">George Mitchell\u00a0\u2013 the \u201cfather of fracking\u201d<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 drilled the first sample wells for his company <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fundinguniverse.com\/company-histories\/mitchell-energy-and-development-corporation-history\/\" target=\"_blank\">Mitchell Energy<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>As <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bna.com\/opponents-plan-file-n17179907031\/\" target=\"_blank\">promised by the oil and gas industry<\/a>and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.star-telegram.com\/2014\/11\/04\/6260352\/denton-voters-approving-fracking.html\" target=\"_blank\">by Texas Railroad Commission commissioner David Porter<\/a>, the vote was met with immediate legal backlash. Both\u00a0the<a href=\"http:\/\/www.desmogblog.com\/sites\/beta.desmogblog.com\/files\/denton%20filed%20copy.pdf\">Texas General Land Office<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/txoga.org\/assets\/doc\/TXOGA_Petition_Against_the_City_of_Denton.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">Texas Oil and Gas Association<\/a>\u00a0(<span class=\"caps\">TXOGA<\/span>)\u00a0filed lawsuits in Texas courts <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MikeLeeFW\/status\/530093677159260160\" target=\"_blank\">within roughly 12 hours of the vote taking place<\/a>, the latest actions in the aggressive <a href=\"http:\/\/www.desmogblog.com\/2014\/10\/22\/fracking-ban-supporters-face-new-wave-mccarthyism-denton-texas\">months-long campaign by the industry<\/a> and the<a href=\"http:\/\/thischangeseverything.org\/how-putin-became-a-central-figure-in-the-first-ever-vote-to-ban-fracking-in-texas\/\" target=\"_blank\">Texas state government<\/a> to fend off the ban.<\/p>\n<p>The Land Office and\u00a0<span class=\"caps\">TXOGA<\/span>\u00a0lawsuits, besides making similar legal arguments about state law preempting local law under the Texas Constitution, share something else in common: ties to former President George W. Bush and the Bush family at\u00a0large.<\/p>\n<p>In <a href=\"http:\/\/www.desmogblog.com\/sites\/beta.desmogblog.com\/files\/denton%20filed%20copy.pdf\">the Land Office legal case<\/a>, though current land commissioner <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Jerry_E._Patterson\" target=\"_blank\">Jerry Patterson<\/a> signed off on the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.desmogblog.com\/sites\/beta.desmogblog.com\/files\/denton%20filed%20copy.pdf\">lawsuit<\/a>, he will soon depart from office.\u00a0And\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/George_P._Bush\" target=\"_blank\">George Prescott Bush<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 son of former Florida Governor and <a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/articles\/former-florida-gov-jeb-bush-sends-signals-about-2016-presidential-run-1409876227\" target=\"_blank\">prospective 2016 Republican Party presidential nominee Jeb Bush<\/a> and nephew of former President George W. Bush\u00a0\u2013\u00a0will take his\u00a0place.<\/p>\n<div class=\"expresscurate_source\" style=\"height: auto;\">\n<p>Read more <a class=\"expresscurated\" href=\"http:\/\/www.desmogblog.com\/2014\/11\/06\/bush-family-inner-circle-office-denton-texas-fracking-ban-lawsuits\" data-curated-url=\"http:\/\/www.desmogblog.com\/2014\/11\/06\/bush-family-inner-circle-office-denton-texas-fracking-ban-lawsuits\">http:\/\/www.desmogblog.com<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On November 4, Denton, Texas,became the first city in the state to banthe process of hydraulic fracturing (\u201cfracking\u201d) when 59 percent of voters cast ballots in favor of the initiative. It did so in the heart of the Barnett Shale\u00a0basin, where George Mitchell\u00a0\u2013 the \u201cfather of fracking\u201d\u00a0\u2013 drilled the first sample wells for his company [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":115122,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,17],"tags":[835,833,834,778],"class_list":{"0":"post-141621","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-politics","9":"tag-galveston-bay","10":"tag-hunt-oil","11":"tag-kurdish-regional-government","12":"tag-mark-keywords"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}