Mose Buchele is the Austin-based broadcast reporter for StateImpact. He has been on staff at KUT 90.5 in Austin since 2009, covering local and state issues. Mose has also worked as a blogger on politics and an education reporter at his hometown paper in Western Massachusetts. He holds masters degrees in Latin American Studies and Journalism from UT Austin.
The Lucas Derrick, named after Anthony F. Lucas, stands atop Spindletop Hill in Beaumont, Texas. Beaumont was the sight of Texas's first oil gusher January 10, 1901.
The House Energy Resources Committee heard hours of testimony on Wednesday on House Bill 100, also known as the ‘unitization bill.’
What exactly does that mean, and why is it garnering such a heated reaction?
It means that the Railroad Commission of Texas would be able to designate areas for drilling in which the holders of a majority of mineral rights in the area can extract oil and gas, even if a minority of the holders does not want to. That designation would be made at the request of property owners or companies that hold the leases to the mineral rights.
In Taylor’s bill, the number is split 70/30. That means if holders of 70 percent of the mineral rights in an area agree, drillers can move forward with “operations intended to increase the ultimate recovery of oil, gas or oil and gas from a common source of supply,â according to the bill, even if the other 30 percent are opposed.
When supporters of the Keystone XL pipeline said it would bring jobs to Texas, they probably werenât talking about jobs for lawyers.
Thatâs just kind of how it worked out.
As property owners challenge the companyâs use of eminent domain, the project to bring crude from the Canadian tar sands to refineries on the Texas Gulf sparked litigation all down the line. One of those property owners is Julia Trigg Crawford. Sheâs a farmer from North Texas who says it was too easy for the company to take her land.
Photo by Terrence Henry
Julia Trigg Crawford has been in an extended legal battle with the TransCanada pipeline company.
âThe way TransCanada got to that stage is, they went to the Railroad Commission [which regulates drilling and pipelines in the state], they got the T4 form,” Crawford told StateImpact Texas, “and when they got to the box that asked if youâre a common carrier or a private carrier they checked the common carrier box.â
To be a “common carrier” means that the pipeline can be hired out by whatever entity can afford to use it, kind of like a toll road. To claim common carrier status gives the company the right to take land under state law. But in 2011, the Texas Supreme Court ruled that pipeline builders need to do more than check a box to get that power. Now, three bills at the state capital aim to overhaul the system.
Whooping Cranes return to Aransas for Winter 2009.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) is tasked with safeguarding the state’s natural resources, but this week a federal judge found the Agency responsible for the deaths of 23 rare whooping cranes.
The TCEQ’s management of water flows into the Guadalupe River lead to the deaths by not allowing enough freshwater into the river, raising its levels of salinity, according to U.S. District Judge Janis Graham Jack.
Judge Jack found that the Agency’s actions are a violation of the U.S. Endangered Species Act. Her order mandates that the TCEQ create a habitat conservation plan for the cranes and bars the state from issuing any new water permits on the rivers without federal oversight.
But the ruling may influence water management in Texas well beyond the Guadalupe River. Continue Reading →
Original Story, March 8, 2013:Â “Local control” is a term you hear a lot of from Texas elected officials. That’s no surprise in a state where lawmakers extoll the benefits of limited central government and bottom-up policy making. But, according to some, there are also times when local regulations can become confusing and cumbersome. Specifically, when they pertain to regulating oil and gas drilling.
“Tarrant county is a great example,” State Rep. Phil King (R-Weatherford) said at a recent panel discussion on the oil and gas boom hosted by StateImpact Texas. “[It has] 34 municipalities within the county each one has different laws regarding drilling. In fact, there’s one community that’s completely outlawed any drilling.”
A bill filed this legislative session by State Rep. Van Taylor, R-Plano, would not take away the right of local jurisdictions to pass those restrictions, but it may make them much more difficult to accomplish. Continue Reading →
You know what they say, “one man’s earthquake is another man’s ‘seismic activity.'”
At a StateImpact Texas panel on the legislative response to the Texas oil and gas boom, we asked some lawmakers if they are hearing concerns from constituents about the uptick in earthquakes in the state. Scientists have linked all that shaking to disposal wells used to store the byproducts from both traditional drilling and hydro-fracturing, or fracking.
“It really hasn’t been earthquakes, it’s been seismic activity,” he said.
King said he was skeptical of the link between the drilling and the shaking underground, but “the good news is nobody’s felt it, there hasnât been any damage we have some time to kind of look at it.”
Texas is not known for robust state regulation of industry, but some lawmakers are filing bills to address the current oil and gas boom.
Update/Correction: 03/08/13
The original version of this story reported that Rep. Van Taylor’s HB 100 would reduce methane flaring by encouraging the capture of more methane gas. In a subsequent interview, Rep. Taylor clarified, saying it reduce Co2 emissions by making carbon gasses more valuable to drillers looking to extract more oil and gas from unitized fields.It would not reduce flaring.
In some northeastern states like New York and New Jersey, elected officials debate whether to ban the type of drilling called hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.” Youâd be hard pressed to find talk like that from Texas lawmakers.
At a recent panel discussion hosted by StateImpact Texas, four Texas legislators from diverse political and geographic backgrounds all sang the praises of the fracking boom.
“As I tour my district, and I drive through what were once small towns and counties, what I hear is, itâs exciting, there are a lot of opportunities,” said Carlos Uresti, a Democratic State Senator from San Antonio, in a typical nod to the economic promise of the oil and gas boom.
But just below the surface, as you drill down into the issues, there is a debate forming over the role Texas elected officials will play in regulating the impacts of drilling. Continue Reading →
Two years ago Texas’ booming Barnett Shale region was facing a slew of challenges that came along with increased oil and gas drilling. Heavy drilling trucks were destroying the roads, employees were getting poached from their everyday jobs to go work on the rigs, and residents of North Texas worried about what kind of impact all that drilling was having on the environment.
Those problems persist. But as the price of natural gas has declined, much of the drilling activity has moved south, to the Eagle Ford Shale region, where drillers can extract more valuable crude oil and liquids from the ground.
State Rep. Eddie Lucio III spoke at the 2013 Ag Water Forum in Austin.
When the 2013 Texas Ag Water Forum met today, it was no coincidence it met just a few blocks from the State Capitol. As lawmakers grapple with how to fund the State Water Plan, agricultural groups worry that their water needs might be sidelined this legislative session.
There is an emerging consensus among legislators that the state should take around two billion dollars from the Texas Rainy Day Fund to put towards water projects. The Senate bill to do that designates ten percent of the money for rural use, but the House bill does not. The feeling among many of those at the forum was that both bills should set aside funds for rural projects.
âThere has to be a way to marry the needs of both agriculture and municipal use, because in reality, theyâre married to one another, and itâs just through policy and funding that we do that,” Democratic State Representative Eddie Lucio III, who represents agricultural regions in the Rio Grande Valley told StateImpact Texas.
Generations of Plainview residents worked at the plant. Aubrey Rivera, Aliva’s daughter, told her her mom she wanted to work there when she grew up.
Criselda Avila lost her job at the Cargill Beef Processing Plant in Plainview. Now she’s unsure what she’ll do and what will happen to the Southern Plains town she calls home.
Jose Amaya and his wife Zuzema have relatives who have already moved away.
Images of cows can be found on the street signs of downtown Plainview
Ruben and Riene Olivas worry what will happen to their business now that the plant has closed.
The streets of Plainview.
Statues of cattle can be found throughout town. A nod to the local importance of the industry.
Johnny Ray Muniz leaves his last shift at the Cargill Beef Processing Plant.
As Mayor Wendell Dunlap plans for the city’s recovery, “your prayers are appreciated,” he said.
A group picture taken the day the last cow came through the Cargill Plant.
The Cargill Excel Beef Processing plant in Plainview, Texas.
Irene and Ruben Olivas say the ripple effect of the plant closure threatens the bakery where they work.
By the time the cows arrived at Criselda Avila’s work station at the Cargill Excel Beef Processing Plant in Plainview, they had already been slaughtered, skinned and gutted. The carcasses came in hanging from a long chain that ran over the plant floor. They were divided up and divided again. Avila worked on skirt steaks.
âYou gotta spread it open and then cut the little skirt off, and then throw that on the table and then peeling and just trimming the fat off is what it was,” she remembered recently, sitting in her living room. “You know, fajitas.â
It was numbingly repetitive work. More than 4,500 cows went through the plant every day. So when Avila was done with one, there was always another behind it. Then, on the last day of January, she saw something she never expected to see.
Photo courtesy of Criselda Avila
A group picture taken the day the last cow came through the Cargill Plant.
“There were the last few cows, then the last cow was coming down the chain, and people there were just banging our hooks,” she said. “People started crying, like âoh my god this is the end of it.ââ
That was how the city of Plainview lost over 2,000 jobs. After years of drought, the U.S. cattle herd is at its lowest level since 1952. Cargill Meat Solutions, the company that owns the plant, says there are simply not enough cows in existence to keep the plant running. For years ranchers across Texas have been cutting back their herds in response to the historically dry weather, but this is the first time those cuts have reached up the supply chain, to hit the industrial heart of a Texas city. The plant closure could have wide sweeping ramifications across the region. Continue Reading →
GermĂĄn CurĂĄ, President of Tenaris North America, watched by Texas Gov. Rick Perry as he gives details on the new pipeline facility.
In response to the boom in oil and gas drilling in Texas and throughout the U.S., the world’s largest manufacturer of steel pipes for the oil and gas industry announced today that it plans to invest up to $1.5 billion dollars in a new manufacturing facility in Bay City, Texas.
“This will be a state of the art facility, devoted to the production of steel pipes” GermĂĄn CurĂĄ, President of Tenaris North America said in a press conference late this morning. “It will help meet the growing demands of the domestic energy industry particularly given the state of development of the shales, oil and gas, the resumption of deep water drilling in the gulf of Mexico.”
Texas Governor Rick Perry used the announcement as a opportunity to defend the Texas Enterprise Fund. That is a state fund used to attract business to Texas that has been singled out for cuts by state lawmakers. Perry said the offer of $6 million dollars from the fund had helped convince Tanaris to build the plant in Texas.
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