March 25, 2019
Mineral and royalty owners have been the target of a scam, District 18 Rep. Ernest Bailes told the House Energy Resources committee on Monday….
March 25, 2019
The Texas House Energy Resources committee on Monday passed along to the full House of Representatives five bill on which it heard testimony last week.
The bills would alter the primary funding method for the Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC), the way the RRC handles purchasing under a federal program and the eay it handles licensing of LNG, CNG and LPG container and systems retailers….
March 25, 2019
As of Tuesday afternoon, the bill has only a hearing in the Colorado House Appropriations Committee before coming to the full House for consideration.
A bill that might result in an adversarial relationship between the state of Colorado and oil and gas producers appears likely to pass that state’s legislature on party-line votes and make it into law.
The bill would change the mission of oil and gas regulators, removing them from working closely with the industry, changing their stated purpose to that of protecting the environment and public health.
Considering the momentum it has among legislators, the bill appears likely to pass……
March 25, 2019
The Texas House Energy Resources committee continues to consider a bill that focuses on the needs of contract employees, who struggle and often have long periods without work because of non-compete clauses in oil & gas contracts, versus the needs of consultant and staffing companies to protect their firms against the poaching of employees.
HB 1522 was undergoing scrutiny late Monday afternoon, a bill that would change Master Service Contracts (“1099” as opposed to “W2” employees in IRS parlance), including that an “entity” may not require an oil & gas independent contractor “from performing work or providing a service for another entity” engaged in the same operations, effectively freeing contractors to choose more freely among work that comes their way.
The sponsor of the bill, Energy Resources chairman and East Texas District 9 Rep. Chris Paddie, said his concerns are that contractors sitting out non-competes are contributing to the shortage of Permian Basin workers, that the non-competes are unfair because they sometimes “surprise” contractors who don’t read their contracts when they take jobs and, anyway, the non-competes are unenforceable because non-competes can be struck down in court as a kind of restraint of trade……..
March 25, 2019
The Texas Senate has passed an eminent domain bill with a “two offer” requirement to be made during land condemnation proceedings that must also be entered into the Land Owners Bill of Rights from the state attorney general…
March 21, 2019
The news media struggled to explain the use of naphta and Xylene to the petrochemical process but it’s much easier to emphasize their danger than their usefulness; with government and industries in low esteem, rumors and conspiracies rampant, shouldn’t there be a higher profile for state jurisdictional agencies and the oil and gas industry as a whole?
An abundance of caution surrounds the alarming fire incident at the Intercontinental Terminals Company and there’s every indication that the aftermath is going smoothly, but there are two important takeaways:
The circumstances under which the inferno happened were actually fortunate for the public considering the height of the toxic plume of smoke — and the petroleum industry together with government should take a moment to note the public interest deficiencies.
It’s my contention that state agencies such as the TCEQ should have vocal representatives to inform the public during petrochemical incidents such as this one.
It’s also my contention that the oil and gas industries should have their own representative at worrisome scenes such as the ITC fire, not for public relations but for public comfort and information.
We Were Lucky
The weather was with us: The Harris County Meteorologist Jeff Lindner admitted that while the toxic smoke from the tank farm at ITC (owned by the Japanese industrial giant Mitsui) was being carried high above the Houston area, had winds and weather been different it might have been a disaster for people in the path of the smoke, especially the young, the elderly and the infirm.
People who live in the vicinity of the Houston Ship Channel petrochemical complex have always been aware of their vulnerability to the industry that surrounds them and they take incidents like the Saturday fire (extinguished quickly) at a Baytown facility in stride, and there are extraordinary precautions in place for all nearby residents, but even those protocols would have been severely taxed had there been the kind of weather that keeps the winds at ground level.
There Was Good Information Flow
At the scene of the fire there was no shortage of rumors floating like the billowing smoke: It was arson, some said, terrorism (because of the ExxonMobil fire the day before), there were unattended safety systems, there was outright carelessness, others said, none of these rumors proved to be true.
And there were the usual sensational headlines: “Massive Houston chemical fire burns indefinitely, spreading smoke across Texas” was among the more exaggerated (it would take a lot of smoke to spread across the whole state, and the ITC smoke didn’t even “cover Houston,” as some said), and there are those who said the fire burned for four days (how can you squeeze four days between 10 am Sunday and 2 am Wednesday?).
As late as Thursday there were rumors that winds had shifted and there was danger for those in fast-growing Pearland and points south of the tank farm, also not true.
But county and local officials and especially ITC kept the information flowing: Pollution monitors showed no real short-term danger, monitoring was continuous and there was the needed caution.
No one said everything’s wonderful, just that it appears to be under control, as the firefighting continued.
As with Hurricane Harvey, the Harris County Judge, in this case Lina Hidalgo, made frequent appearances, if only to be a comforting presence and to restate the opinions of experts.
The Railroad Commission’s Ryan Sitton was there to affirm the air safety pronouncements and the ITC spokeswoman, Alice Richardson, appeared prepared for questions and forthright with what answers she had.
“There Must Be Some Kind of Coverup”
But the lack of confidence in the wider scope of government and the oil and gas industry was palpable for those of us who were there: There must be a coverup of some kind, people kept saying, the smoke is too rancid-looking and the air too thick with chemical smell.
It would have helped, perhaps, to have an outspoken representative from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality at news conferences to give comfort to residents, and it just seemed like there should have been some representation from the oil and gas industry to help calm fears and answer questions about the nature of the materials that were going up in flames.
News media struggled to explain the uses of naphta and Xylene in the industry and how exposure to it might affect those who might breathe the charred fumes — and the resulting warnings inevitably made the chemicals seem deadly.
The press conferences could have used a cool-headed expert, which both the TCEQ and the US Environmental Protection Agency could probably have provided, if not the oil and gas industry, but there was no one to reassure folks that there was no coverup underway.
It Could Have Been Worse, So Where Were Jurisdictional Agencies?
Yes, polls indicate a suspicion among most people of government and big corporations, but there’s no way of restoring faith among the public without concern, reassurance and cooperation.
The TCEQ has been under fire for some time by critics who claim it’s in cahoots with big industries,but again it’s a big state with a lot of territory to cover and the agency has a lot of responsibilities.
Public confidence in the EPA is also ebbing, especially in the era of President Trump simply because it appears the administration is weakening environmental protections, but the EPA appeared weak during Hurricane Harvey in 2017 when it, according to the Los Angeles Times two weeks ago, refused “Houston’s own” NASA’s attempts to fly a pollution-measuring plane over the city in the aftermath of Harvey.
With low confidence in public agencies such as these, it would seem intuitive to send knowledgeable representatives to help calm public fears at times of potential crisis such as the ITC fire, which could have been so much worse that the EPA and TCEQ absence from the public discourse could have been anger-provoking.
Please Send Experts to the Scene to Give the Public Better Answers
And it could have been worse — the plume of smoke was already circling south of Houston and up northwest into the Brazos Valley and to Austin, where an accumulation of smoke would have been hard for lawmakers in session to ignore.
If the Houston Chronicle reporting is true that the cause of the ITC blaze was a malfunctioning manifold at one tank that erupted in fire because of a spark, then ITD’s dispatch of a special firefighting team from Louisiana, which apparently resulted in a more aggressive stance against the fire, was a prudent move, if perhaps late, and the Red Adair method of fighting wellhead fires using dynamite would have been out of place in hot zones such as the ITC fire.
But when all measurements are taken and the investigation into the cause of the fire is finished, it would also seem necessary for the oil and gas industry and its representatives to consider an emergency dispatch for an on-call expert who can be there when potential disasters such as the ITC fire occur.
It’s not enough for an industry so vital not only to Texas but, considering the world economy is based on petrochemicals, for the world that local officials try to assuage public fears during petrochemical emergencies.
The lack of an expert opinion in these situations only drives suspicion, conspiracy theories and outrage.
“Do You Want to Negotiate a New Deal? Perhaps a Green One?”
The ITC fire was visually spectacular, an invitation for video news, image addicted as it is, to spread the story around the world, and we all know that as stories are spread details are embellished and facts can get mangled.
This would not be a time to call for better public relations for the oil and gas industries, but it certainly would be time to call for an industry-wide decision to take better control of the industry as a whole during the inevitable disasters when human error or the unknown or even failing equipment can bring unforeseeable environmental disaster.
A breach by an outlying company such as ITC can easily reflect on the industry as a whole, and in this case it probably has.
As Houston Chronicle columnist Chris Tomlinson pointed out, the thick black smoke is a reminder that we have to get our nail polish remover and gasoline processing chemicals somewhere, and the bargain the world has made for cheap gasoline and natural gas includes the occasional problem — sometimes huge — that makes the “Green New Deal” look better to some, possibly including Tomlinson.
Perhaps the greatest single lesson for the oil and gas industries and the agencies that oversee them, in this case, is that it doesn’t take another Macondo Prospect-Deepwater blowout to spell public relations disaster — it could be a blown manifold at a chemical tank farm.
Or some other small thing, until it’s not so small anymore.
— Mike Shiloh
Mike Shiloh is publisher and an editor at The Texas Energy Report
March 20, 2019
An extension of the Joint Interim Committee to Study a Coastal Barrier System was passed to the full Senate on Wednesday…
March 20, 2019
She may be a former district court judge, but state Sen. Joan Huffman is a practitioner of the language of the people.
When standing in for Lt. Governor Dan Patrick following the passage of important disaster planning and response legislation Wednesday afternoon, Sen. Huffman was presiding before the Senate in procedure for a bill from Sen. Kirk Watson on the floor.
When Sen. Huffman made a procedural proclamation, she appeared to gavel too soon.
“Oh sh–,” she said, her voice dropping off-microphone.
Spectators might not have heard the word.
After mild laughter from the floor, she said, “I think I just lost my job.”
“You’ve certainly made this bill more exciting,” Watson quipped.
She recovered quickly, got through the procedure, then introduced a bill to protect free speech and assembly rights “central to the mission of public institutions” that Sen. Paul Bettencourt called a “model for the nation.”
Strategies and money for coastal erosion research and oil spill response included.
March 20, 2019
The Texas Senate has passed a trio of bills aimed at clarifying preparation for future disasters and organizing future state response to disasters.
Senate Bills 6, 7 and 8 included floor amendments….
March 19, 2019
The Texas Senate has passed SB 554 bill that increases the requirement that governmental entities demonstrate progress that land taken by eminent domain is actually put to public use….
March 18, 2019
The Texas House Energy Resources committee on Monday heard bills that would alter primary funding method of the Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC), the way the RRC handles purchasing under a federal program and handles licensing of LNG, CNG and LPG container and systems retailers….
March 14, 2019
A Texas Senate vote is calendared for Monday that could have long-term effects on property rights law, eminent domain land condemnation procedures and the speed with which pipelines are built, as several lobbies hash it out
A group including the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, the Texas Farm Bureau and the Texas Wildlife Association (along with others) is speaking out in favor of an eminent domain bill that now contains substitute language from the Senate State Affairs committee.
And a group led by the Texas Oil and Gas Association (TXOGA) and the Texas Pipeline Association is speaking out against the revised SB 421 — now called CSSB 421, an amendment to the Texas Property Code — and is recommending legislators vote down the bill when it comes before the Senate, which could be as early as Monday, when it is calendared for a full Senate vote.
The intent of the bill as stated by the author is simply to increase fairness in the Texas eminent domain process.
The committee’s report was handed out to Senators on Thursday afternoon.
The committee’s changes to Sen. Lois Kolkhorst‘s introduced bill — following a lengthy public hearing — include re-defining who can attend the proposed required public meetings before land condemnation — meetings that are to be called by the government entity doing that condemnation.
This, along with changing the description of those who are to be notified of such meetings — open public meetings were changed, in the revised bill, to meetings of property owners who might be affected by the land acquisition, with notice of those meetings now limited to affected property owners rather than the general public.
The substitute bill also changed language referring to easements, and tried to narrow down some language in an attempt to avoid lawsuits.
See the bill, as amended, by clicking here.
But TXOGA and the Texas Pipeline Association (along with others) immediately said the substitute bill indeed does not use precise enough language and “allows the landowner to engage in prolific litigation due to numerous procedural gotchas.”
And they took issue with several specific portions of the amended bill, including what they call vague language including a special commissioners’ process as part of certification of land seizure “with little guidance or legal standard for the court,” allowing litigation to stifle infrastructure projects, according to a letter the TXOGA-led associations sent to Lt. Governor Dan Patrick.
Two Opposing Views Of SB 421
On one point the two groups take opposing interpretations of the revised bill’s language.
One of the concerns raised by many were the required “public meetings” to be called by the government entity overseeing the condemnation of property, which could be an open invitation to special-interest groups to turn the meetings into protests or standoffs…..
March 12, 2019
One of two bills aimed at penalizing companies that low balling landowners during eminent domain negotiations has made it out of committee….
March 9, 2019
While almost all the bills are in at the Legislature, we’re sifting through them for their pertinence to the energy industries in Texas.
These are the first of the bills we’re categorizing, but this list is temporarily incomplete — we will be adding to it over the next few days, so please check back with us shortly…..
March 7, 2019
With the deadline for submitting bills for the 86th state legislature almost here, expect our customary rundown of the bills we’re watching for you to appear this weekend.
Among them are bills calling for:
March 7, 2019
Controversy over a proposed Kinder Morgan pipeline that would run through Hays County south of Austin likely influenced the filing of a new bill by Democratic state Rep. Erin Zwiener…
February 27, 2019
Three state lawmakers are trying to bring high-speed Internet services to more areas of rural Texas…
February 25, 2019
Two West Texas lawmakers have new bills aimed at funneling state money to local governments that have energy-related activities for making much-needed repairs and expansions on roads along with increasing educational opportunities and increasing public safety…
February 25, 2019
Family members of a 12-year-old girl who was killed in a Dallas natural gas explosion are set to appear on the floor of the Texas House of Representatives this week…
February 20, 2019
The Texas Senate Select Committee on Texas Ports is being convened again, Lt. Governor Dan Patrick said on Wednesday…
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