The Texas Railroad Commission is a 'Captive Agency'
Before being elected last year to serve as one of three commissioners of the Texas Railroad Agency, Jim Wright was on a crusade to protect some oil businesses from state regulation. The irony should be nearly palpable; the Railroad Commission (RRC) is tasked with overseeing virtually all segments of the state’s oil and gas industry. It permits oil wells and pipelines, inspects drilling sites for compliance with state rules, and fines operators who violate the law. Anyone in the Texas oil and gas business is ultimately answerable to the three commissioners.
In 2016, Wright, who at the time owned an oilfield waste disposal company, made his first campaign donations to RRC commissioners. He wrote checks totaling $1,500 to commissioners Ryan Sitton and Christi Craddick. The same year, Wright joined an industry task force that lobbied the RRC to loosen regulations that protect water supplies from chemicals in oilfield waste pits. A Gulf Coast state representative—whom Wright had given $60,000 in contributions—attempted to pass legislation that would give the task force more political sway.
The legislation failed and the task force fizzled—Wright’s company was fined more than $18,000 for oilfield waste violations in 2018. And while Wright’s efforts to reign in state regulators fell flat, they appear to show his willingness to protect industry players from state oversight. The details of Wright’s past dealings come courtesy of a new report, produced by political watchdog groups Commission Shift and Texans for Public Justice, which analyzed public records, financial disclosures and other documents. Their findings reveal that Wright still owns stakes in the very companies he’s tasked with regulating and that the RRC’s other commissioners present myriad conflicts of interest. The report released Thursday is the final chapter of a series titled “Captive Agency.” The previous installments focused on commissioners Craddick and Wayne Christian, who also maintain financial interests in oil and gas companies.
“This agency affects so much of what happens in this state, whether you’re talking about climate change or keeping our grid reliable,” says Virginia Palacios, the executive director of Commission Shift. The agency also oversees the flaring of massive amounts of usable natural gas in the Lone Star State, which can allow companies to release hundreds of tons of potent greenhouse gases such as methane into the atmosphere. Natural gas pipelines statewide froze during the February storm, cutting off supply to gas-fired power plants and playing a key role in days-long power outages. “The agency didn’t act, and that is the reason that people died and we saw billions of dollars in damages in this state,” Palacios says.
Read more: https://www.texasobserver.org/the-texas-railroad-commission-is-a-captive-agency/
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