Little-known oil and gas regulator election imminent

My first gig at a daily newspaper was covering cops for the Abilene Reporter-News, and my first story was about a car collision with a train at a railroad crossing. Someone must have mentioned that perhaps the warning lights didn?t flash because the next thing you know, I was in a frenzy of ?investigation? to figure out if the state had dropped the ball in regulating the safety of crossings.

My first call? The Texas Railroad Commission, which, I found out, has nothing to do with railroads.

It regulates the oil and gas industry.

Today, I can count myself among the relative minority of Texans who recognize the TRC doesn?t rule the railroads.

Nonetheless, the three people who run the agency ? which most recently, also included the regulation of hydraulic fracturing fluids ? are elected officials. Two of those three spots are open seats this year.

Quick ? can you name one of the three people on the commission today?

I talked to Mark Jones, chair of the political science department at Rice University? ? Rice University Latest from The Business Journals Foundation awards million in medical grantsHouston?s oil and gas sector weighs the impact of the November presidential electionIs Obama becoming pro-energy? Follow this company , to get better insight into what?s at stake in this election cycle.

?The Texas Railroad Commission can have a real impact on public policy in Texas, but you?d be hard-pressed to find two or three people who have any idea what they do,? he said. ?Almost nobody knows it exists, and even fewer know what it actually does.?

As Jones explained it, when voters don?t know the candidates, they often fall back on party affiliation. Consequently, a seat on the Texas Railroad Commission is generally won in the Republican primary, which is currently scheduled to occur on April 3, 2012.

In 2011, the Texas Senate passed a bill to reduce the number of commissioners from three to one and to rename it to the Texas Oil and Gas Commission, but it went up in flames before the session ended.

Deon covers energy and law for the Houston Business Journal.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/bizj_houston/~3/bVX72EVe4BQ/little-known-oil-and-gas-regulator.html

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