The Austin office of watchdog group Public Citizen has sued the Texas Railroad Commission, the state's oil and gas regulator, over emergency orders in May that waived fees and relaxed regulations for the storage of crude.
In response to a glut of crude and rapidly dwindling room to store it, the agency's three commissioners voted May 5 to enact orders that waived fees and charges for construction of new oil storage projects through the end of the year. Commissioners also gave oil companies more time to store waste in open pits and to plug abandoned wells.
Public Citizen filed its suit Wednesday in state district court alleging that commissioners used the coronavirus pandemic to give handouts to industry — and that they did so without public input, skirting laws such as the Texas Public Meetings Act.
Politics: Railroad Commission rejects statewide oil production cuts
Record low oil prices have caused a drop in demand for oil and natural gas and an uptick in bankruptcy filings, which Public Citizen argues will mean that more tax dollars will be spent on cleaning up abandoned wells.
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July 23, 2020 at 11:25PM
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Watchdog group sues Railroad Commission over oil storage crisis orders - Houston Chronicle
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