Most Recent in Texas Politics:

1Amid a National Reckoning Over Racial Injustice, Royce West Seeks to Upset MJ Hegar—and the DSCC

2Doctors Reverse Course, Say Texas GOP Should Cancel In-Person Convention

3The Next Census Could Determine the Future of Port Arthur

4Texas Had a State Office That Could Have Investigated Racial Disparities in COVID-19 Cases. Lawmakers Defunded it Three Years Ago.

5The COVID-19 Disaster Has Made a Mess of Texas’ Open Government Rules

6‘I’m in Limbo Here’: Texans Are Met with an Overwhelmed and Antiquated State Unemployment System

Most Recent in Environment:

1How Texas Lawmakers and Industry Have Weakened Citizens’ Rights to Fight Pollution

2Texas Relaxed Environmental Enforcement During the Pandemic, State Data Show

3Editorial: Air Pollution Was Already Killing Us. Then Came the Coronavirus. Why Won’t the EPA Act?

4City Nature Challenge Can Help Us Find Resilience and Mindfulness at Home

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

6COVID-19 is Buying Time for Gulf Coast Towns Fighting Oil and Gas Projects

Most Recent in Border:

1Between Borders

3Along the Border, Witnesses of Smuggling Crimes Are Being Held in Detention, Despite Coronavirus Concerns

4In Migrants Camps Along the Texas-Mexico Border, Close Quarters and Closing Borders Raise Concerns

5U.S. Supreme Court Sides with Trump Administration on ‘Remain in Mexico’

6Following a Protest, ICE Moves Asylum-Seekers For the Second Time in Two Weeks

Most Recent in Criminal Justice:

1Reform vs. Rebuild: Defunding Law Enforcement in Texas

2As COVID-19 Cases Surge, Some Incarcerated People Remain Behind Bars After Making Bail

3A Major Obstacle to Police Reform: The Whiteness of Their Union Bosses

4COVID-19 Has Delayed Programs That Texas Prisoners Need to Get Out

5Why Is APD Responding to Mental Health Crises like Violent Crimes?

Most Recent in Education:

1The New Ensemble

2Raise a Glass to the Class of COVID-19

3Tough Decisions Ahead for School Leaders in Rural Texas

4‘Almost Akin to a Political Coup’: Houston Teachers Fight Back Against State Takeover of HISD

5The Creature of Martin Creek Lake Won’t Die

6The Cost of Carve-Outs

Most Recent in Health Care:

1Neglected in Care

2COVID-19 is Surging in Rural Texas, Threatening to Overwhelm Local Hospitals

3He Removed Labels That Said ‘Medical Use Prohibited,’ Then Tried to Sell Thousands of Masks to Officials Who Distribute to Hospitals

4Promising Results Reported for COVID-19 Patients Treated with Plasma Therapy in Texas

5The Traveling Midwife

6In Rural Texas, COVID-19 Contact Tracing is Largely Up to Local Officials, If It Happens at All

Most Recent in The Interview:

1Texas Observer Founding Editor Ronnie Dugger Reflects on 65 Years of Publication

2How Katharine Hayhoe Stays Hopeful as the Planet Warms

3Author William Lopez on How Immigration Raids Inflict Long-Lasting Trauma

4Why a Texas Gun Control Activist is Optimistic About the Chances for Reform

5American Health Care is Broken, Especially in Texas. What Can We Do About It?

6Thousands of Rape Kits in Texas Went Untested For Years. Lavinia Masters Is Ending That.

Most Recent in Books:

1In ‘Separated,’ One Journalist’s Close-up View of the Family Separation Crisis

2Lawrence Wright Embraces Pandemic Panic in ‘The End of October’

3Is it Time to Rethink Texas Suburbia?

4What’s a Bookstore for?

5In ‘All I Ever Wanted,’ Kathy Valentine Reclaims Her Narrative

6A New Book on the Sutherland Springs Shooting Explores Resilience, Forgiveness, and Grace

Most Recent in Features:

1Young Texans Keep Spelling Bees Going From Home

3San Antonio Embraces Mandaean Refugees

4The Ghosts of Jefferson

5Little Arthouse on the Prairie

6The Clothes that Make the Man

Most Recent in Essay:

1What the Black Lives Matter Protests Mean for East Texas

2Raise a Glass to the Class of COVID-19

3What’s a Bookstore for?

4Lessons on the Long Game from Goose Island’s Whooping Cranes

5In a Pandemic, Poor Defendants Could Pay With Their Lives

6Loneliness in the Age of Coronavirus

Most Recent in Eye on Texas:

1Eye on Texas: Border Tuner

2Eye on Texas: The Broken Wheel Ranch Project

3Eye on Texas: Spike Johnston

4Eye on Texas: Loren Elliott

5Eye on Texas: Charlotte Moore

6Eye on Texas: ‘My Joyful Dance’

Most Recent in Poetry:

1Author Saeed Jones on Empathy, the Power of Memoir, and Growing up Gay in North Texas

2Remembering W.S. Merwin, Honorary Texan

3Lost in Limbo in the Hays County Jail

4Houston Poet Analicia Sotelo’s Debut Smashes Latino Stereotypes

5Parallel 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

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