Same song, second verse. The gas drilling industry simply will not abide being made to pay for the damage it does to Arkansas. The Highway and Transportation Department, no slouch in the political lobbying department, has been shouted down by the yowls of the industry in attempting to reduce weight limits on secondary roads in the Fayetteville shale exploration zone. (I should have mentioned that the gas drillers pulled in allies from the timber and agriculture sector because the weight limits could have affected them, too, though it’s the new intense use by the gas industry that’s accelerated road problems.)

The plans to reduce weight limits — and better preserve the roads from drilling rig damage — have been cut almost in half — on 69 rather than 133 miles of roads. And the 133 recommended had been edited down from some 300 miles of roads originally considered for lower limits by highway engineers.

Full details follow. Remember this when you’re asked to approve a diesel tax and sales tax increase to pay for road work, some of it caused by people who won’t pay their own way. The Highway Department seems to be falling back to a beg-them-for-alms approach.