Texas Has Elected A Climate Change Denier to the Railroad Commission

[TexasTowelie]

Ten years. That’s how long we have to make massive reductions in carbon emissions before some of the worst effects of climate change become irreversible, according to the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It will be nearly impossible to reduce greenhouse gases without better regulating the oil and gas industry, which has driven man-made climate change since the Industrial Revolution. But for six years of that crucial decade, a Texan who thinks that climate change is simply a sign of Earth “evolving” will serve as one of three state officials overseeing the oil and gas industry in one of the world’s richest oil fields.

On Tuesday, Republican Jim Wright, the owner of an oilfield waste recycling company, beat Democrat Chrysta Castañeda, an energy lawyer, for a seat on the Texas Railroad Commission. Castañeda wasn’t exactly a bleeding heart environmentalist: As an energy lawyer, she had previously represented the likes of T. Boone Pickens, the legendary Texas oilman, and campaigned on “responsible” energy production—such as reducing flaring, the practice of burning off excess natural gas at wells. Had Castañeda won the race, it could have shifted the commission’s openly pro-business stance in the direction of environmental stewardship. The opportunity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from flaring was so important that it led billionaire and former presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg to give Castañeda’s campaign $2.6 million in late October. The race for Railroad Commissioner may have been one of the most obscure elections this year, but it drew outsize national attention because of the outsize impact the next commissioner will have on climate change.

Wright, it seems, will fit right in with his soon-to-be colleagues on the staunchly free-market, regulation averse commission. About a month before election day, Wright made an appearance on a business podcast called Oil and Gas Startup. When the hosts asked Wright about his stance on flaring and climate change, he countered with another question: “Can you tell me of any exact research that says flaring is harming our atmosphere, any worse than emissions from a car or anything else they’re claiming is making changes to our climate?”

The hosts of the podcast couldn’t answer, even though myriad studies and reports have established that flaring releases copious amounts of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change, into the atmosphere. What’s more, when flares are unlit or malfunctioning the gas can be released in the form of methane, a greenhouse gas that is up to 84 times more potent than CO2. Texas leads the nation in oil and gas production—as well as greenhouse gas emissions.

Read more: https://www.texasobserver.org/climate-change-texas-railroad-commission/