The Race to Regulate Texas' Oil and Gas Industry Is Within Reach for Democrats
By Luke Warford
2022 was one of the hottest summers in Texas history. When temperatures began skyrocketing in mid-May, state officials warned Texans to cut back on their energy use — a pattern that would continue throughout the summer. These repeated advisories led to widespread public concern that the state’s power grid was on the brink of collapse.
It’s no surprise that Texans were worried. Texas’ power grid failed in February 2021, when Winter Storm Uri hit, and the state’s natural gas infrastructure all but ceased to function. As a result of the grid failure, millions of Texans spent days without power, heat, or usable water. Hundreds of Texans literally froze to death in their homes.
The devastation wrought by the grid failure was made all the worse by the fact that the Texas Railroad Commission (RRC) could have prevented it. For those unfamiliar, the Texas Railroad Commission (which has nothing to do with trains) is the agency responsible for regulating Texas’ oil and gas industry. And the current commissioners — including Wayne Christian, whom I’m running to replace this November — are doing a terrible job.
Beginning in 2011, experts repeatedly warned the RRC’s commissioners that Texas’ power grid wasn’t prepared for cold weather, and that the RRC desperately needed to fulfill its duty of making and enforcing a weatherization standard for the state’s natural gas producers. But the RRC’s commissioners — whose campaigns are bankrolled by the very industry they are supposed to be regulating — chose to do nothing.
Texans were outraged by the grid failure — and they’ve stayed that way. A fall 2021 poll showed that 60 percent of Texas voters disapproved of state leaders’ handling of the power grid. This spring, polling found that voters disapproved of the RRC’s handling of Winter Storm Uri by a margin of 61-23. And while that same poll showed me trailing Christian by 11 points, it also found that when voters were made aware of my opponent’s culpability for the grid failure, history of corruption, and disregard for basic environmental standards, more of them supported me — swinging by 18 points to give me a 45-38 lead.
New polling from Data for Progress shows that the race has tightened considerably; Christian is now leading by a mere 4 points. Crucially, the Data for Progress poll also found that many voters still don’t know much about me or Christian besides our party affiliations — and that homing in on Christian’s egregious conduct before, during, and after the grid failure presents a huge opportunity to win over Independent and undecided voters.
The Data for Progress survey, conducted from August 17-22, showed that roughly 80 percent of voters initially didn’t have enough information about me or Christian to form a solid opinion about either of us. But after hearing positive biographical information about both of us, it turned out that voters liked me a whole lot more than Christian. I emerged with an overall favorability margin of +44 points compared to Christian’s +3. The favorability contrast was most evident among Independent (+60 compared to -8) and undecided (+54 compared to -3) voters.
Further, the poll found that Independent and undecided voters were particularly persuaded by messaging about Christian’s failed handling of Winter Storm Uri.
Finally, after hearing both positive and negative messaging about me and Christian, my initial standing improved from 40-44 to 43-45. In other words, the race is now neck-and-neck — meaning we can defeat Christian by continuing our strategy of focusing on his failure to protect the grid, as well as his long track record of prioritizing the interests of his oil and gas executive donors over the well-being and safety of ordinary Texans.
Winning in Texas remains an uphill battle for Democrats up and down the ballot. But the race for Texas Railroad Commission is a winnable one. We can see that not just in the polling but in the energy on the ground. I received 901,239 votes in the March Democratic primary — nearly 130,000 more than Christian got in the Republican primary — and 521,989 of the votes I received were cast early, demonstrating high Democratic voter enthusiasm and a robust turnout operation.
Meanwhile, after failing to secure 50 percent of the Republican primary vote, Christian was forced into an embarrassing, time-consuming, and expensive runoff with political newcomer Sarah Stogner, who gained significant traction by calling out Christian’s incompetence and coziness with the same folks he is supposed to be regulating. The appetite for change is reflected in the amount of donations our campaign has brought in from everyday Texans.
And Texas Democrats are now more fired up than ever before. Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, Texas has seen a surge of new voter registration that has left Democrats with a 10-point advantage among new registrants — a trend that will benefit all of the state’s Democratic candidates in November.
The outcome of the Texas Railroad Commission election has implications that reach far beyond Texas. Democrats gaining a foothold in Texas could transform the state’s political landscape long-term — like Rick Perry’s breakthrough win for agriculture commissioner in 1990 — and serve as a model for politicians and prospective officeholders across the country on how to approach climate change in an oil- and gas-producing state.
Texas is the largest greenhouse gas emitter in the country, and Texas’ oil and gas industry is the largest contributor to those emissions. Put differently, the Texas Railroad Commission regulates the industry that produces the most greenhouse gasses in the highest greenhouse-gas-emitting state in the country. And every year, millions of tons of greenhouse gasses are emitted into the atmosphere because the Texas Railroad Commission fails to enforce existing regulations. If I’m elected, I’ll make sure the Texas Railroad Commission actually does what it’s supposed to do — enforce the existing flaring regulations and hold bad actors accountable — while fighting to ensure Texans have access to clean, affordable, reliable energy.
Like the overwhelming majority of Americans, I believe the August passage of the Inflation Reduction Act and its historic $369 billion investment in clean energy and reducing pollution is an important step.
State-level actions on these issues are necessary in part because the year and a half of debate that preceded the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act — along with the June Supreme Court ruling sharply limiting the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions — has made it clear that we cannot rely on just the federal government to make progress on climate. Going forward, state and local officials will play an increasing role in reducing emissions and securing our future. And when it comes to climate, the Texas Railroad Commission is the most important state-level office in the country.
The race for the post is within reach, so my team and I need your support in our efforts to reach all the voters so that the Texas Railroad Commission serves residents of the Lone Star State.
Luke Warford (@LukeWarfordTX) is the Democratic nominee for the Texas Railroad Commission, the statewide office that regulates the Texas oil and gas industry.