Articles tagged: oil and gas
The Unlikely Demise of Texas’ Biggest Corporate Tax Break
After 20 years, the state’s most lucrative corporate welfare program comes to an end.
In 2001, state lawmakers and business leaders warned that the state’s high property tax rates were discouraging corporations from locating big projects in...Read More
Waves of Abandonment
The Permian Basin is ground zero for a billion-dollar surge of zombie oil wells.
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‘No Teeth and No Funding’: How Regulators Failed to Police the Oil Industry
Budget cuts and long term disinvestment in local environmental agencies have hobbled the states’ ability to oversee fracking.
This story is one installment of a larger project by Grist and The Texas Observer. Support comes from the Pulitzer Center. The fracking boom in the Permian Ba...Read More
Dying Oil Companies’ Parting Gift: Millions in Clean Up Costs
One Texas oil and gas company left the state responsible for almost $10 million after its 2019 bankruptcy.
This story is co-published with Grist. When Weatherly Oil and Gas filed for bankruptcy in February 2019, the company was walking away from several hundred Te...Read More
The Oil and Gas Industry Still Hasn’t Reckoned with #MeToo
Groping. Catcalling. Crude texts. We spoke to women in the oil industry who say they faced sexual harassment and were punished for speaking out.
With stunning precision, Sara Saidman, an oil field engineer, can still recall the moment that “set the tone for the rest of my employment at Schlumberger,”...Read More
Illegal Air Pollution is Skyrocketing in Texas, But State Regulators are Ignoring Complaints
An environmental watchdog submitted evidence of dozens of violations, but the state’s environmental agency rarely followed up.
It’s no secret that in the Permian Basin, one of the world’s most productive oil and gas fields, pollution is everywhere. Industrial facilities burn off so ...Read More
From Boom to Bloodbath
The Permian Basin’s shale revolution is over and renewable energy is surging. What does that mean for Texas’ future?
From Boom to Bloodbath The Permian Basin’s shale revolution is over and renewable energy is surging. What does that mean for Texas’ future? By Justin Miller...Read More
With Storage Space Evaporating, the Oil and Gas Industry Will Get to Put Its Products Back Underground
The Railroad Commission has rolled back rules that once prohibited producers from storing liquid hydrocarbons in geological formations across the state, despite risks to aquifers.
Last month, as the COVID-19 pandemic pushed oil prices into negative figures, drillers in the state’s sprawling shale plays were still pumping and piping oil ...Read More
Living With Discomfort and Ambiguity in ‘Finding Home in Boomtown’
A new documentary follows a couple’s winding path toward starting a tiny-home community for the homeless in West Texas.
Outside a big, stately home in a Midland suburb sits a pocket-size tiny house. Curious passersby peer inside the model, picking up flyers and bottled water from...Read More