Texans for Public Justice, www.tpj.org, issued its report on 2012 Election Cycle Spending by Texas political action committees. You can see it here. Some highlights:
Of the $70 million spent by Texas business PACs in 2011-12, $11.9 million, or 9%, was spent by PACs devoted to energy and natural resources issues/candidates. Here are the top spenders:
The above figures represent spending by these PACs both in-state and out-of-state.
The Sunset Commission’s final report on the results of its recommendations for reform of the Texas Railroad Commission can be found here. The report’s summary:
Summary of Final Results
S.B. 212 Nichols (D. Bonnen) — Not Enacted
Colleen Schreiber has written an excellent article in the June 13 edition of Livestock Weekly, “Landowners Hold Off Oil and Gas Lobby on Common Carrier Bills,” describing the blow-by-blow negotiations and lobbying in the pipeline industry’s efforts to “solve” the problems created by the Texas Supreme Court’s decision in Tex. Rice Land Partners, Ltd. v. Denbury Green Pipeline-Tex., LLC, 363 S.W.3d 192, 198 (Tex. 2012).
Lined up on one side: pipeline lobbyists supporting bills by Rep. Tryon Lewis, R. Odessa, in the House, and Robert Duncan, R. Lubbock, in the Senate, including the powerful Koch brothers, owners of Koch Enterprises.
On the other side: Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, Texas Farm Bureau, Texas Land and Mineral Owners’ Association, the Bass family, and plaintiffs’ lawyers.
Terrence Henry, a writer for StateImpact Texas, has written a recent article, “Why Oil and Gas Lobbyists Were Big Spenders in Texas.” He analyzes two reports on spending on lobbyists and campaigns compiled by Texans for Public Justice. Lobbyists for energy and natural resources companies spent between $31.4 million and $62.5 million on lobbyists during the most recent legislative session, according to the report, 19% of the total of between $155 million and $328 million spent on the session. Incredible numbers. There are no limits on such spending in Texas.
Texas Railroad Commissioners were big beneficiaries of both campaign contributions and lobbying by oil and gas interests. Sunset-recommended reforms of the Commission, opposed by the Commissioners, failed to pass once again. The only RRC-related reform that did pass (but which the Governor has vetoed) was a requirement that a commissioner resign if he/she decides to run for another office. Andrew Wheat, a researcher at Texans for Public Justice, says that’s because the oil and gas industry supported that measure: “The [oil and gas industry] is interested in paying their bills while they’re commissioners. But they don’t want to pony up huge amounts of money every time one of these people wants to run for higher office.”
One important bill supported by the energy industry did not pass. It would have limited public participation in hearings at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality in applications for emissions permits. The bill was opposed by communities and environmental groups. And pipeline companies’ bills to make it easier for them to exercise the power of eminent domain to condemn pipeline easements also failed to pass.
The session is over, and the Texas legislature has failed once again to pass sunset legislation for the Texas Railroad Commission. The legislature instead authorized continuation of the RRC for another four years, with sunset review to be repeated in the 2017 legislative session.
Under Texas sunset act, every state agency must go through a comprehensive review of its functions and performance every twelve years by the Sunset Advisory Commission, a 12-member commission appointed by the Lieutenant Governor and the Speaker of the House. The RRC underwent sunset review in 2010; the report of the Sunset Advisory Commission at that time criticized the agency for failing to vigorously enforce its rules and assess penalties for rule violations, and recommended structural reforms of the agency, including replacement of the three elected commissioners with a single appointed commissioner. But the legislature failed to pass any legislation recommended by the Commission, instead requiring that sunset review be repeated for its 2013 session.
The 2012 Sunset Commission report no longer recommended replacing the three elected commissioners with an appointed commissioner. Instead, it recommended ethics reforms, including limiting the time when commissioners could solicit campaign contributions and prohibiting commissioners from accepting contributions from any company with a contested case pending before the RRC. It also required a commissioner running for a different elective office to resign from the RRC. The commissioners vigorously opposed these recommendations and the legislation introduced to enact the reforms.
A client recently suggested that I should write about landfarming – the practice of disposing of drilling mud and cuttings by spreading it over land.
Drilling mud is the common term for the fluid used in the process of drilling a well. It is made up of a mixture of clay (bentonite) in a base of either water, diesel or mineral oil. It also contains an organic material such as lignite to stabilize the slurry and a material such as barite to increase its density. The drilling mud is circulated through the wellbore – pumped down the inside of the drill stem, through the drill bit, and up the outside or annulus of the hole as the well is being drilled. The drilling fluid carries the cuttings made by the drill bit back up and out of the hole, and it helps to cool the drill bit. The clay also coats the outside of the open hole to help seal off porous geologic strata. The drilling fluid is circulated through a pit or tank, where the cuttings settle out, and re-injected into the hole. Usually an earthen “reserve pit” is constructed for this purpose.
The actual content of drilling mud varies with conditions in the hole and the formations being drilled. In the Eagle Ford, for example, water-based mud is typically used for the vertical section of the hole, and oil-based mud is used for the horizontal section.
In a prior post, I wrote about a new development at the Texas Railroad Commission: granting permits for “allocation wells” – horizontal wells drilled across lease lines without pooling the leases. Since I wrote that post, our firm was retained to represent the parties protesting EOG Resources’ application for a permit for an allocation well. A hearing on the application was held at the RRC on December 3. In addition to EOG and the protestants, Devon Energy appeared at the hearing supporting EOG, and the Texas General Land Office appeared opposing allocation wells on State-owned minerals. All parties have now submitted closing statements and responses, which can be viewed below:
Texas’ Sunset Advisory Commission has issued its recommendations for changes at the Texas Railroad Commission. The report can be found here.
The RRC was up for regular Sunset review in 2010, and the Sunset Commission issued a report recommending several changes then, including abolishing the three-member elected Commission and replacing it with a single appointed Commissioner. Largely due to debate over that recommendation, most of the Sunset Commission’s 2010 recommendations were not enacted, and the Legislature told the Sunset Commission to issue a new report for its 2012 legislative session.
In its current report the Sunset Commission no longer recommends replacing the three elected Commissioners. It recommends changing the Commission’s name to the Texas Energy Resources Commission; limiting the time when Commissioners can solicit campaign contributions and prohibiting a Commissioner from accepting contributions from any party with a contested case before the Commission; requiring a Commissioner running for another elected office to resign; and requiring the Commission to adopt a recusal policy rule.
I have recently become aware of recent changes in Texas Railroad Commission policies regarding “production sharing agreements” and “allocation wells” that deserve some comment. Some background is necessary to understand these recent developments.
Over the last couple of years I have been asked to review and explain proposed “production sharing agreements” sent to royalty owners. Operators in the Haynesville came up with the concept of production sharing agreements when they were faced with trying to drill wells in areas that were held by production from large pooled units producing from vertical Cotton Valley wells. The pooled units were not configured to allow for efficient drilling of Haynesville horizontal wells. Operators wanted to drill laterals crossing the boundaries of the pooled units, and apparently the pooled units covered the Haynesville depths as well as the Cotton Valley. So, they came up with the idea of production sharing agreements. The agreements provide that the royalty owners in the two existing units agree that production from the horizontal well will be “shared” between the two units based on the percentage of lateral length on each unit, and production allocated to each unit will be treated for lease and royalty payment purposes as if produced from the unit. Devon was a big proponent of these agreements. From the royalty owner’s point of view, the agreements have advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is that the royalty owner will get royalties on production from a new well that might not be drilled unless a production sharing agreement is signed to allow drilling across lease or unit boundaries. The disadvantage is that production from one well serves to keep all of the leases in both units in effect for as long as it produces.
A well drilled across lease or unit boundaries pursuant to a production sharing agreement is referred to at the RRC as a “PSA” well, because the permit is granted based on the operator’s assertion that it has production sharing agreements with royalty owners for allocation of production between or among tracts; or as an “allocation well,” because production from the well is allocated to two or more separate leases or units. When operators began applying for drilling permits for these wells, there was discussion at the RRC about how to handle them, because they did not fit the standard model of pooled units. Eventually, the RRC staff adopted an informal, unwritten policy that, if the operator would represent in its permit application that it had production sharing agreements from at least 65% of the royalty owners in both units, the RRC would grant the permit. The RRC has created a new form, the “PSA-12” form, to replace the Form P-12 that operators must file to represent that they have the right to create a pooled unit. If the operator submits the PSA-12 form, the RRC grants a PSA well permit, based on its informal 65% joinder policy.
In its 2009 Legislative Session, the Texas Legislature passed House Bill 2259, whose stated purpose is to ensure that inactive oil and gas wells get plugged and that surface equipment associated with those wells gets removed. I provided a summary of the bill’s terms in a post on this site. A summary of the bill’s requirements from the Texas Railroad Commission may be found here. The Texas Land and Mineral Owners Association, which lobbied for the bill, has now issued its report card: the Railroad Commission is not doing its job.
HB 2259 does not actually require that inactive wells be plugged. It imposes requirements on operators of inactive wells, depending on how long the wells have been inactive, to: disconnect the wells from electricity; post additional bonds to assure that the wells will eventually be plugged; and remove surface equipment from the wells. These provisions are phased in over a 10-year period. HB 2259 provides that an operator who does not comply with the new requirements will lose its operating permit (known as a P-5) — meaning that it will not have the right to continue to operate any wells in the State.
Recently, TLMA asked the RRC how many P-5 permits have been denied because of failure to comply with HB 2259. The answer: none. Even though, according to TLMA, almost 1,500 operators failed to comply with the statute.
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