By Cyrus Reed
Last August, in a public meeting that lasted all day, hundreds of Texans spoke out that the Railroad Commission (RRC) was not properly regulating the oil and gas industry and not respecting private property rights. Texans from all around the state came with their personal and professional experiences about the failing regulatory agency and pushed the meeting into the late hours of night with their testimony.
In mid-November, in a lightning discussion that lasted just 20 minutes, the Sunset Commission (tasked with overseeing changes to the RRC) rejected many of the issues that Texans needed in addition to many of the substantive recommendations made by their own staff. Most of the modest “reform” recommendations that the Sunset Commission adopted were given the blessing of the oil and gas industry. Now, the Railroad Commission is likely to continue on for the next 12 years with the same misleading name, and its commissioners receiving millions in contributions from the very industry they are supposed to regulate.
To be fair, the Sunset Commission did approve two significant changes: improved enforcement policy, including transparency, and better pipeline regulations. Specifically, they ordered the Railroad Commission to develop a strategic plan for the Oil and Gas Division that tracks and measures the effectiveness of monitoring and enforcement, and also directed the Commission to make a number of management actions, including accurately tracking and reporting the number of oil and gas violations annually. Moreover, on pipeline oversight, they recommended authorizing the Railroad Commission to inspect and enforce damage prevention requirements on pipelines that cross state lines, and to create a pipeline permit fee. While these are important changes, many other issues were ignored.
Texas already has to face one of those ignored issues: thousands of abandoned and unplugged oil and gas wells, some of which have started leaking and contaminating groundwater. New bonding requirements would have made it so that oil and gas companies would have to put up more money at the start of drilling to ensure proper plugging and clean-up, but the Sunset Commission rejected that recommendation.
What of other issues that the public raised?
Many Texans attested to their frustration with the agency when it came to follow-up and finding any records on spills. In fact, in 2016, the RRC came under heavy scrutiny when the El Paso Times released a series of investigative stories that found that the agency was woefully lacking in their response, clean-up, and documentation of oil spills. Representative Richard Peña Raymond (D) who had previously raised the issue was silent during the decision making and subsequently a recommendation to put oil and gas enforcement data in a searchable database online and review antiquated rules on inspection wells was not passed.
In fact, Rep. Raymond dropped a number of issues he had raised, stating that there was no support for them. To Rep. Raymond, we would like to express our disappointment and remind him that with the upcoming Trump administration, now is not the time for weak allies in the fight to protect our environment.
Interestingly, one member did bring up an issue. Former conservative U.S. Rep. Allen West, a retired colonel and not the classic definition of an environmentalist, suggested that the Railroad Commission’s rules on injection wells should be updated as data from the state’s seismic monitoring system -- paid for last session by the Legislature -- reveals issues. That suggestion was approved.
Apparently, if a member had the courage to raise an issue, it could actually pass. How about something simple? Rename the agency the Texas Energy Resources Commission since they don’t actually regulate railroads? Maybe the large number of oil and gas suits in the room prevented many members from doing the right thing. Not one voice in support.
What’s next?
Now that the Sunset Commission has made its modest decisions, the next step will be to turn those decisions into a bill sometime early next year. That is when the real fun begins. For our part, we at the Sierra Club, our members and our allies will continue to push for more meaningful reforms at the Legislature.
Some legislators with apparently a bit more courage, have begun filing bills to address some of the issues that we and others have raised. Rafael Anchia of Dallas has filed two bills -- HB 237 and HB 247 that would respectively rename the agency the Texas Energy Resources Commission and require that enforcement, complaint and inspection data be online and searchable, while Senator Carlos Uresti has filed a bill that would require -- shock - Groundwater Conservation Districts to be notified when an oil and gas company applies to dispose of wastewater in their area.
We also plan to go directly to the source -- the Railroad Commission - and ask it to start modernizing its antiquated rules on issues like flaring and venting, injection wells, spills, and access to its data.
Oh yeah, and we’ll continue to educate Texans on this agency that is failing the people of Texas, and ask them to hold their elected officials accountable.