Most Recent in Texas Politics:

1The Lege This Week: Abbott Lets His Mask Slip

2The Lege This Week: Adventures in Circular Finger Pointing

3The Lege This Week: Out Cold

4The Lege This Week: Senators Poke, Prod and Punch Paxton

5The Lege This Week: Amid Pandemic, Abbott Prioritizes Red Meat

6The Lege This Week: Texas Redistricting Will Be A Summer Showdown

Most Recent in Environment:

1Biden Plans to Ban All New Fracking Leases on Public Land. Will He Actually Do It?

2The Sunniest City in Texas is Expanding … Natural Gas Production

3What to do With a “Tidal Wave” of Texas Wind Turbine Blades

4Teens for a Green New Deal

5Why the South Is Organizing Its Own Green New Deal

6Solar Energy is Hitting a Growth Spurt. So Is The Disinformation Around It.

Most Recent in Border:

1How Texas Courts Went Virtual

2In ‘At the Ready,’ Latinx High Schoolers Train to Be Border Patrol Agents

3Forgotten for Over a Century, Border Hero Jovita Idár Is Rediscovered by Her Hometown of Laredo

4Deaths in ICE Custody Skyrocketed During the COVID-19 Pandemic

5Local Organizers Explain the Republican Surge in South Texas

65,000 People Contract COVID-19 While In ICE Custody, Including This Father Of 5

Most Recent in Criminal Justice:

1Clogged Toilets, Snow Inside: How the Winter Storm Exacerbated Problems in Texas Lock-Ups

3Exploring the Rise, Fall, and Lingering Trauma of the Death Penalty in Texas

4Anatomy of a Crime

5Fort Bend County Will Soon Have Its First Black Sheriff Since Reconstruction

6How Texas Jails Avoid Investigations of Inmate Deaths

Most Recent in Education:

1The Long, Winding Road that Led to the SBOE’s Decision for Texas Schools to Teach Abstinence-Plus Sex Education

2Efforts to Save What’s Left of Mary Allen Seminary Reveal The Challenges of Preserving Black Placemaking in Texas

3Texas Has the Widest Digital Divide in the Nation. What Does that Mean for the School Year?

4The New Ensemble

5Raise a Glass to the Class of COVID-19

6Tough Decisions Ahead for School Leaders in Rural Texas

Most Recent in Health Care:

1Portraits of the Pandemic: Part Two

2Editorial: Texas Wasn’t Prepared for the Statewide Vaccine Rush

3COVID-19’s Deadly Toll on Texas Workers

4COVID-19 Response has Been Starkly Different for Indigenous Communities in Texas

5After Sarah Davis’ Election Defeat, Texas Reproductive Health Advocates Worry About Losing a Powerful Republican Ally

6For Families That Lost Loved Ones or Jobs to the Pandemic, Thanksgiving Carries an Extra Weight This Year

Most Recent in The Interview:

1Researcher Howard Henderson on Reimagining Policing in the U.S.

2Texas Observer Founding Editor Ronnie Dugger Reflects on 65 Years of Publication

3How Katharine Hayhoe Stays Hopeful as the Planet Warms

4Author William Lopez on How Immigration Raids Inflict Long-Lasting Trauma

5Why a Texas Gun Control Activist is Optimistic About the Chances for Reform

6American Health Care is Broken, Especially in Texas. What Can We Do About It?

Most Recent in Books:

1“Wings of Ebony” Brings Black Girl Magic to Life

2A New Book Celebrates the Work of Architect John S. Chase

3The Flâneur of Downtown Dallas

4Remembering a Jewish Upbringing in Meyerland, Texas

5How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

6A New Short-Story Collection Imagines a Texas Town’s Secession

Most Recent in Features:

1How to Die in Texas

2Young Texans Keep Spelling Bees Going From Home

4San Antonio Embraces Mandaean Refugees

5The Ghosts of Jefferson

6Little Arthouse on the Prairie

Most Recent in Essay:

1Editorial: Look Down Ballot for Democratic Wins in Texas

2What the Black Lives Matter Protests Mean for East Texas

3Raise a Glass to the Class of COVID-19

4What’s a Bookstore for?

5Lessons on the Long Game from Goose Island’s Whooping Cranes

6In a Pandemic, Poor Defendants Could Pay With Their Lives

Most Recent in Eye on Texas:

1Eye on Texas: The Essential Women of Austin

2Eye on Texas: A House Divided

3Eye on Texas: The Black Yearbook

4Eye on Texas: Border Tuner

5Eye on Texas: The Broken Wheel Ranch Project

6Eye on Texas: Spike Johnston

Most Recent in Poetry:

1Poet Claudia Delfina Cardona on Her Debut Poetry Chapbook

2Author Saeed Jones on Empathy, the Power of Memoir, and Growing up Gay in North Texas

3Remembering W.S. Merwin, Honorary Texan

4Lost in Limbo in the Hays County Jail

5Houston Poet Analicia Sotelo’s Debut Smashes Latino Stereotypes

6Parallel Planes

Articles tagged: Railroad Commission

This photo taken in 2015, shows a flare-up at an oil processing plant outside Cuero, Texas in 2015. Researchers from the University of Southern California and San Francisco State University are using satellites to see how much flaring occurs in the region, in addition to data provided by the oil and gas industry. The researchers have counted 43,887 distinct oil and gas flares in the region from 2012 to 2016.

The Environmental Protection Agency Wants to Repeal its Methane Emissions Limits

Texas, the nation’s largest oil and gas producer, doesn’t otherwise regulate the potent greenhouse gas.

Fri, Aug 30, 2019 |

When it comes to climate change, what happens in Texas—the nation’s top oil and gas producer—increasingly doesn’t stay in Texas. The Lone Star state acc...Read More

by Naveena Sadasivam

After Eight-Year Battle Over Reforming the Railroad Commission, Oil and Gas Industry Wins

The industry is the top funding source for lawmakers’ campaigns, according to a recent report from Texans for Public Justice.

Tue, May 16, 2017 |

A nearly decade-long battle between environmentalists and the oil and gas industry to reform Texas’ energy regulatory agency came to a close last week — and...Read More

$A fracking operation in the Eagle Ford Shale region.$

by Naveena Sadasivam

Will the Railroad Commission Ever Be Accurately Named?

Thu, Nov 10, 2016 |

The Sunset Commission nixed a recommendation to change the Texas Railroad Commission’s name to one that actually describes its role regulating oil and gas....Read More

$Hospitals, nursing homes and schools in Texas in close proximity to fracking operations put children at particular risk, say environmental groups.$

Enviros to Texas Lawmakers: What About the Fracking Kids?

Fri, Oct 14, 2016 |

A report showing the proximity of schools and daycare centers to fracking wells should serve as a wakeup call to Texas lawmakers, environmental groups say....Read More

Louis XIV

by Christopher Hooks

WTF Friday: Mind Playing Tricks On Me

Fri, Sep 12, 2014 |

This week in WTF: L'Empereur Richard Perry of Paint Creek, Vladimir Putin up in everybody's stuff now, Todd Staples is hungry for vegetarians. Dewhurst....Read More

An oil field south of Odessa, TX.

by Christopher Hooks

House Committee Pledges to do Very Little About ‘Frackquakes’

Tue, May 13, 2014 |

If the first meeting of a House subcommittee on frackquakes is any indication, the Lege plans to ask nicely that the oil and gas industries do better....Read More

Anti-Federal Sentiment Dominates Discussion of Texas Oil and Gas Industry

by Beth Cortez-Neavel

Thu, Jan 10, 2013

The newest member of the Texas Railroad Commission, Christi Craddick, took to the podium at the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s big Austin policy confab ...Read More

Top