Texas oil regulators approve expenditure

Texas energy regulators, trying to cope with the biggest oil boom in decades, dipped into an environmental cleanup account Tuesday so they can whittle down a backlog of well permit requests and expand drilling.

The Texas Railroad Commission voted unanimously to tap up to $750,000 from the Oil Field Cleanup Fund, an account normally used to plug abandoned wells and remediate contaminated drilling sites. The money in the account comes largely from industry permit fees.
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