States dependent on oil and gas revenue are bracing for layoffs, slashing agency budgets and growing increasingly anxious about the ripple effect that falling oil prices may have on their local economies. The concerns are cutting across traditional oil states like Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Alaska as well as those like North Dakota that are benefiting from the nation’s latest energy boom. Here in Houston, which proudly bills itself as the energy capital of the world, Hercules Offshore announced it would lay off about 324 employees who work on the company’s rigs in the Gulf of Mexico at […]