Every time he’s required to vote on a natural gas drilling permit, Arlington City Council member Raul Gonzalez feels his stomach tie up in knots. Depending on how close the new gas wells are to a school or homes, dozens of residents turn out to voice concerns about the impact of drilling on public health, quality of life and climate change.
During a February council meeting, Gonzalez voted against TotalEnergies’ permit request to expand drilling in east Arlington.
“I care about the people — we all do,” Gonzalez said. “But sometimes you’ve got to be the one that votes no. I’m not afraid to do stuff. I just feel like God put me here, I got to do what’s right.”
When the issue returned to council in March, Gonzalez and Nikkie Hunter voted against Total’s application. However, when it came time to vote on a second permit allowing four new gas wells to be drilled, Gonzalez decided to approve.
Like the majority of his fellow council members, Gonzalez came to the conclusion that the city’s hands are tied by House Bill 40, a 2015 state law that prohibits cities from banning fracking or implementing regulations on drilling that are not “commercially reasonable.” Arlington has rules for noise control, landscaping, equipment and the required distance between drilling and protected buildings, such as homes, schools and hospitals.
“What the state did, they took local control away from us. That’s the key to almost everything the state has done recently,” Gonzalez said. “It’s disheartening.”
House Bill 40 is at the center of debate over how much control Arlington officials have over gas drilling within city limits. City leaders say the law restrains their ability to deny permit applications from gas companies that could file costly lawsuits if turned down. However, some residents and environmental activists argue council members could take more action to regulate gas drilling without violating the law.
Ranjana Bhandari, executive director of environmental advocacy organization Liveable Arlington, said House Bill 40 has become a “convenient bogeyman” for city leaders who want to avoid true enforcement of Arlington’s gas drilling ordinance. The law contains clear language allowing the city to establish reasonable distances between drilling and residents, she said.
Previous councils denied TotalEnergies’ permit requests in 2020 and 2022, and Total Energies did not file suit as a result, Bhandari said. Arlington is facing a lawsuit from Bhandari’s organization and two residents who say city officials failed to follow their ordinances when they approved two new gas wells last year. The suit remains tied up in appeals court.
“This council has been on a well-permitting spree for two and a half years,” Bhandari said. “The legal framework has not changed. It’s the same since 2015. But council’s actions have changed. The last mayor and the last council operated very differently from this one, and they didn’t trigger any lawsuits.”
Arlington’s term limits policy, which caps council members to nine years on council, has led to less institutional knowledge of gas drilling policy, Gonzalez said. He called several aspects of the city’s policy, including which permit applications get hearings and which don’t, “confusing.”
With several residents registering opposition to the policies, council members have a responsibility to advocate for their constituents in the state legislature and beyond, Gonzalez said. He said he’s already spoken with state Rep. Chris Turner, D-Arlington, about his concerns. Turner previously filed a bill to require public hearings if gas drilling was proposed within 1,500 feet of a school or child care center.
“I don’t like to tell people: ‘We had to vote for it. Contact your legislator,’” Gonzalez said. “You got to let them know that’s our job as elected officials. That’s what we do. We represent the citizens as elected officials. We’re the advocates. We’re the ones that need to go to Austin.”
Other city officials are calling for changes to how Arlington approaches gas well votes. During a March 5 meeting, council members Barbara Odom-Wesley and Andrew Piel asked city staff to include information about House Bill 40 in presentations and packets provided to the public during council meetings.
Odom-Wesley said she would like to include information about the law in the same file as support and opposition letters the city receives whenever drilling is on the docket.
“This really bothers me because I feel like I’m not able to vote my conscience,” she said. “We’ve gotten emails and phone calls and (they say) we’re not listening, we don’t care that our constituents are getting sick. And that’s not the case.”
City staff should put the bill’s language on the council chamber screens during evening session discussions and votes, Piel said. Voting against energy companies like Total would cost the city millions of dollars that could be used to help residents affected by drilling, he added.
“I hate it — being told I’m hurting people, I’m gutless for not taking a stand or I’m owned by the gas. I don’t like it,” Piel said. “So I do think it would be nice, like Barbara said, (to put the bill) up on the screen during the vote, that particular provision with that highlighted so that people out there know that we’re not selling them down the river just for fun. This sucks.”
Piel also pointed to a lawsuit against the city of Dallas as an example of what would await Arlington if it denied gas well permits. Trinity East LLC filed suit in 2014, before the passage of House Bill 40, after Dallas officials allegedly backtracked on a deal to allow the company to drill on city-owned land. Following a 2020 court decision, Dallas now owes up to $55 million.
Bhandari said state law does not prevent the city from monitoring air quality at fracking sites, purchasing specialized equipment to document emissions, and citing companies if they exceed noise limits. City leaders have shown little interest in doing so, or consulting with residents about any existing evidence of air quality issues, she said.
If council members are interested in lobbying the Texas legislature for changes to House Bill 40, Bhandari welcomes the effort. But she believes action should have been taken sooner.
“They have a model not so far back in the past of a responsive council faced with the same legal constraints as they have,” Bhandari said. “(Leadership) sometimes requires effort to change the legal infrastructure, not just counting it out when you see it harming the people who elected you. We haven’t found that with this mayor or this council.”
Haley Samsel is the environmental reporter for the Fort Worth Report. You can reach them at haley.samsel@fortworthreport.org.
This story was produced in partnership with Kailey Broussard, KERA’s Arlington accountability reporter. You can email Kailey Broussard at kbroussard@kera.org or follow them on Twitter @KaileyBroussard.
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This article first appeared on Arlington Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
