Sitton was elected in 2014 to the three-member board, which oversees Texas’ oil and gas industry. Jim Wright, who beat him in an upset, owns an oilfield waste services company.
Texas Railroad Commission
Posted in
Energy
“It’s a joke”: Flaring expert finds big problems in report from Texas oil and gas regulator
“It looks more like a political manifesto to me,” a Texas A&M professor said about a report from the Railroad Commission of Texas.
Posted in
Energy
Pipeline giant sues Railroad Commission, alleging lax oversight of natural gas flaring
A subsidiary of Tulsa-based Williams Cos. is suing Texas’ oil and gas regulatory agency after it approved a request from Dallas-based Exco Operating Co. to burn off natural gas from wells in South Texas while they were hooked up to Williams’ pipeline system.
Posted in
Politics
Optimistic Democrats are lining up to run for Texasโ high courts in 2020
The depth of the bench for non-marquee statewide races, like the stateโs two high courts and the Railroad Commission, is a measure of how high Democratic hopes have soared ahead of the 2020 election.
Posted in
Captured by Coal
Texas signed off on the restoration of this old mine. Now a leaky landfill is contaminating groundwater.
Alcoa has put its shuttered Sandow Mine site on the market for $250 million, advertising it as a country paradise. Testing has found that groundwater under a landfill in the middle of the property is contaminated with toxic heavy metals.
Posted in
Captured by Coal
Big coal gave a tiny Texas town free land. Thereโs a major catch.
Sulphur Springs leaders say they want Luminant โ Texasโ largest electricity generator โ to leave in place a 120-foot-tall mound of excavated dirt at the site of a shuttered coal mine so they can build an amphitheater. But the soil contains potentially dangerous materials, according to state regulators.
Posted in
Energy
Dallas attorney Chrysta Castaรฑeda to challenge Railroad Commissioner Ryan Sitton
Castaรฑeda, a Democrat, is centering her 2020 campaign on the issue of flaring, or the burning of natural gas that companies do not move to market.
Posted in
Environment
A creek flowing to the Colorado River turned black. Now the state has sued the alleged polluter.
Residents near Altair began complaining that Skull Creek reeked of chemicals. The Texas attorney general’s office says a local company is to blame.
Posted in
Energy
Railroad commissioners voice doubts that Permian Basin flaring is more prevalent than reported
The Environmental Defense Fund concluded that oil producers burned off more natural gas than they reported to the state. But Texas officials expressed skepticism of those findings during a state Senate hearing Wednesday.
Posted in
Energy
Report: Permian Basin oil producers flaring more natural gas than they told the state
An analysis of government satellite data by the Environmental Defense Fund shows that the amount of natural gas that energy companies burned off in 2017 is twice as high as what they reported to state regulators.
