When early voting opens Monday, every Texas ballot will include a race for the Railroad Commission, the three-member board that, despite its name, regulates the state's oil and gas industry. The Texas Tribune profiled the contest on Saturday between Republican Bo French and Democrat Jon Rosenthal.
The winner of the Nov. 3 election joins a commission that runs an agency with a budget of about half a billion dollars. Commissioners vote on drilling permits, set penalties for violations, approve pipeline construction and oversee programs for disposing of oilfield wastewater, the Tribune reported.
The Democrat
Rosenthal, 63, is a four-term state representative from northwest Houston and a career oil field engineer who calls himself a "Drill, Baby, Drill" Democrat.
His platform, according to the Tribune, includes going after companies that repeatedly exceed air pollution limits, charging a fee on companies that inject oil and gas wastewater underground and using that money to plug abandoned wells, and requiring natural gas plants to prepare for extreme weather and publish the results.
He has said he would rather talk about those issues but is asked about his opponent's posts every day. "In the context of this race, it should be about the facts, but that has changed," he told the Tribune. If elected, he would be the first Democrat on the commission since the 1990s and would hold one of its three votes.
The Republican
French, 56, is a Midland native whose family owns French Oil, a company based there. He is best known as a former chair of the Tarrant County Republican Party. He has promised to lower electricity and gas prices, cut regulations and diversity programs, crack down on foreign ownership of oil and gas wells and promote anti-abortion policies, the Tribune reported.
On the commission's role, he has said its job is to stay out of the way so the industry can produce more oil.
