SAN ANTONIO — In the race for a seat on the Railroad Commission of Texas, Democratic candidate Luke Warford presents himself with a simple message: The world needs more Texas oil and gas.
It’s a departure from the 2020 election season, when national Democratic candidates were one-upping each on how swiftly they would transition the country away from fossil fuels and toward electrification and other forms of zero-carbon energy.
But amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and with a potential recession on the horizon, Warford said the U.S. energy industry should be producing the go-to fuel for buyers looking for energy supplies outside of Russia.
“I’m an energy expansion guy. It’s so clear from the last year that we’re going to need Texas oil and gas for a while,” he said. “So while we need it, we should be making sure that it’s clean and as safe as possible.”
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In a meeting with the San Antonio Express-News editorial board, Warford attributed part of the rightward shift of Latino voters in Texas during the 2020 election to the perception that a Democratic president would do away with oil and gas jobs. That’s not what the nation needs right now, he said.
Commissioner Wayne Christian, the Republican incumbent, said he isn’t buying it.
“Warford would be a rubber-stamp for Biden’s Green New Deal Agenda and he is just saying what swing voters want to hear,” said Christian, who was elected to the RRC in 2016.
Resume, platform
Warford has a flashy resume. He graduated from the London School of Economics, was employed at the World Bank in Washington, D.C., and did development work in Ethiopia before working in Democratic politics. He said he’s also had jobs as a management consultant working with energy companies.
He’s made strengthening the state’s power grid and preventing another Winter Storm Uri-level catastrophe a key part of his campaign. He’s also seeking to reduce natural gas flaring in oil fields around the state, and wants to make the inner workings of the RRC more visible to the public.
And he’s lambasted Christian for taking the majority of his campaign donations from the oil and gas industry he regulates, and for the incumbent’s cozy relationships with industry.
In December 2020, Christian set aside advice from RRC staff who recommended rejecting approval for an oil field waste landfill in Midland that commission staffers said could threaten the area’s groundwater. Three days after approving the project, the applicant firm — High Roller Environmental — donated $100,000 to Christian’s campaign. The East Texas company is based in Center, where Christian is from.
It’s legal in Texas for railroad commissioners to accept unlimited political contributions from the oil and gas entities they oversee. Warford said that while the RRC has conflict of interest rules requiring commissioners to recuse themselves if they have a “personal or private interest” in a matter that comes before them, they’re not followed.
“They just ignore them,” Warford said of the recusal policies. “If I felt like had a conflict of interest in any way, I would recuse myself.”
Fundraising lead
From July through September, Warford reported raising $378,000 in donations, out-raising Christian by three-to-one. Christian received 43 individual donations in the period, versus more than 3,100 contributions for Warford.
Of the $125,000 Christian received in the three-month period, $80,000 came from five donors in the oil and gas industry. Billionaire oilman Jeff Hildebrand donated $10,000, and $25,000 came from Troy Massey, who owns an East Texas oilfield services company based 15 miles from Center.
Warford received at least three donations worth $10,000 each from the Jane Fonda Climate PAC in Washington and from donors in New York and Dallas.
Early last week, Christian had $181,000 in cash on hand, compared with Warford’s $318,000. Christian said Warford’s cash advantage is insignificant to impact the statewide race.
Warford “is endorsed by the Sierra Club, his largest donor is the ‘Jane Fonda Climate PAC,’ he worked for Hillary Clinton, and he has publicly advocated for increasing the regulatory burden on Texas Oil and Gas Businesses,” Christian said. “A third of my opponent’s funding has come from out-of-state climate activists who promote policies that would increase energy and food prices while destroying Texas’ economy.”
A late August poll of likely voters that was conducted by the left-leaning research firm Data for Progress showed Christian with 44 percent support versus 40 percent for Warford. Most of the surveyed voters were unfamiliar with both candidates, however.
Attorney Sarah Stogner took Christian to a run-off election in the Republican primary, when she was raising concerns about the incumbent’s campaign donations and lax enforcement on oil and gas operators. Stogner last month endorsed Warford.
Christian’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
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The reality, Warford said, is that oil and gas companies “are leading” the energy transition with the industry’s technology and expertise.
He pointed to geothermal, a technology enabled by advanced drilling techniques pioneered by oil and gas drillers, as an example. Geothermal power plants have the potential to tap heat deep beneath the surface to create steam that spins a turbine and produces renewable, zero-carbon electricity. CPS Energy is examining building a geothermal plant at the site of the J.K. Spruce Power Plant near Calaveras Lake.
“There’s a really close skills match between oil and gas and geothermal,” Warford said. “I want us to lead in geothermal not just because it’s clean energy. This is going to create good paying jobs for people in the oil and gas industry.”
diego.mendoza-moyers@express-news.net
Read More:World needs Texas oil and gas
2022-10-18 20:08:07
