A natural gas-fueled drilling rig is shown earlier this year in Mentone, Texas. Texas, which has benefited from fracking, has tripled its production of oil in the past five years. Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images AUSTIN, Texas—Last year, a city in North Texas banned fracking. State lawmakers want to make sure that never happens again. On Monday, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott signed a law that prohibits bans of hydraulic fracturing altogether and makes it much harder for municipal and county governments to control where oil and gas wells can be drilled. Similar efforts are cropping up in states including New Mexico, Ohio, Colorado and Oklahoma, where both chambers of the legislature have passed a bill that limits local governments to “reasonable” restrictions on oil and gas activities. This is all part of a broader legislative and judicial effort, backed by the oil industry, to limit local governments’ ability to regulate […]