The name of the Texas oil and gas regulatory agency — unlike its peers in other states — has nothing to do with fossil fuels or natural resources. The Railroad Commission of Texas hasn’t had anything to do with railroads for almost two decades and, for advocates of government transparency, the agency’s name is not just a harmless misnomer — it’s a smoke screen that helps shield the Railroad Commission from public scrutiny and prevents voters from understanding the nature and extent of the elected commissioners’ power.
“It seems obvious a name should reflect what the agency does,” said Adrian Shelley, Texas director of the nonprofit watchdog group Public Citizen. “The agency is actively trying to stay out of the public eye. I do not think it’s more complicated than that.”
Shelley is not the only one who thinks that the commission’s name poses transparency problems. In 2011, a governor-appointed review board found that “the antiquated agency name does not reflect its current functions and confuses the public” and recommended changing the agency’s name to the Texas Oil and Gas Commission.
The review was carried out by the Sunset Advisory Commission, a body composed of five state representatives, five state senators and two members of the public who are tasked with determining whether state agencies should be reauthorized or abolished. Most Texas agencies are subject to periodic Sunset review, and the commission usually recommends reforms, which may — or may not — be included in reauthorization legislation.
The power of the Railroad Commission is vast. The three elected commissioners have primary authority over Texas’ mammoth oil and gas industry, watching over natural gas utilities, coal and uranium mining, industrial waste pits, injection and waste disposal wells and regulating nearly half a million miles of pipelines — yet not a single mile of railroad track.
By extension, the commission is very much at the helm as Texas endures the extremes of climate change that are driven largely by the fossil fuel industry — record-breaking wildfires, furious hurricanes and tornadoes, torrential rains, drought and searing heat waves, all of which come at the expense of human lives and economic loss.
“Now more than ever, the agency’s confusing name is of increasing concern as drilling encroaches on suburban and urban areas of the state, and with that exploration, greater numbers of Texans are affected by oil and gas production who may wish to contact the agency with complaints,” the 2011 Sunset Advisory Commission wrote in its final report.
The members of the Sunset Commission also expressed concern that voters may not understand the nature of the statewide office when they see railroad commissioner candidates on their ballots. As evidence of the confusion generated by the outdated name, the authors noted that “a recent unsuccessful candidate for the Commission even included railroad safety as part of his campaign platform.”
A bill passed the state Senate in 2011 that would have changed the agency’s name to the Texas Oil and Gas Commission, as the Sunset Commission recommended. Authored by former state Sen. Glenn Hegar — a Republican who now serves as Texas’ comptroller — the bill died in the House. A subsequent sunset review in 2013 — undertaken in the midst of the fracking boom — also made a stern recommendation to change the Railroad Commission’s name. “Besides having a name sure to confuse people impacted by expanded drilling,” the Sunset reviewers wrote in their final report, “voters may not understand the duties of the three statewide elected Commissioners running for these offices.” The Texas Senate passed another bill that year, authored by state Sen. Robert Nichols, a Republican, that would have changed the name to the Texas Energy Resources Commission. Yet again, the bill died in the House.
The conclusion by two successive Sunset Commissions that a name change was needed was hardly the product of liberal or environmentalist influences. In 2011 and 2013, the commissions were appointed by then-Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican who later served in the Trump administration as the secretary of energy, and it was heavily stacked with conservative legislators: seven Republicans, three Democrats.
When a bill to reauthorize the Railroad Commission finally passed the Texas House in 2017, it failed to require a name change. Efforts to rename the agency in subsequent legislative sessions — authored by Republicans and Democrats alike — went nowhere.
“It’s a stark reminder of how much influence the industry still yields that something so nonsensical could persist for so long,” said Shelley, the nonprofit watchdog director.
The Railroad Commission’s Unlikely History
You wouldn’t know it by the partisan, pro-industry composition of today’s Railroad Commission — which is led by three statewide-elected commissioners who are all Republicans — but the agency has progressive roots. It was founded in 1891 under pressure from Gov. James Hogg, a reform-minded Democrat who charged the agency with reining in railroad monopolies and ensuring fair prices for intrastate freight traffic. The agency’s creation was part of a broader effort to combat the abuses of the Gilded Age by insurance agencies, land companies and large corporations. “Let us have Texas, the Empire State, governed by the people,” Hogg said in a 1903 speech, “not Texas, the truck-patch, ruled by corporate lobbyists.”
It was not until 1917 — more than two decades after its founding — that the agency first took on oversight of the oil and gas industry. Expanding its anti-monopoly mission, the Texas Legislature authorized the commission to guarantee that pipelines remained common carriers that could not discriminate against anyone who wanted to transport oil. In the ensuing years, the agency took on regulatory responsibility for virtually every aspect of the booming oil and gas industry, eventually empowered to set oil prices for the national and international markets.
With the formation of OPEC (the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) in the 1970s, the commission’s importance as a price-setting entity and driver of national energy policy diminished, but in Texas, the agency remained a powerful force, overseeing nearly every facet of the industry, including guaranteeing compliance with the federal Safe Drinking Water and the Clean Water acts and regulating pipelines. As it evolved into an all-encompassing oil and gas regulator, railroad oversight no longer fit the mission. The last of the agency’s railroad duties were transferred to the Texas Department of Transportation in 2005. But the name remains the same.
What’s in a Name? Power and Money.
“It seems like a no-brainer for the public to have appropriate knowledge of who they elect. That’s what real democracy is,” said Virginia Palacios, executive director of the Laredo, Texas-based nonprofit watchdog group Commission Shift, which is focused on reforming the Railroad Commission. Palacios said she often hears complaints about railroads when she does community outreach work. “People will start talking about the train tracks they live next to,” she said. “I think even among people who know that the Railroad Commission oversees oil and gas development, a lot of them still think it has something to do with railroads.”
According to Palacios — whose organization also advocates for increased availability of multilingual government documents and websites — a simple name change would be a first step toward making the agency more democratic and accountable.
“It’s important that people understand they’re voting on the commissioners that oversee the largest oil and gas industry in the United States and one of the largest in the world,” she said. “All of that plays a role in climate change, air quality, emissions and groundwater, and Texans have a right to be fully informed before they go to the polls and to know what they’re voting on.”
Palacios said that one of the least understood and most critical roles of the Railroad Commission is setting rates for natural gas utilities, which power millions of Texan homes. “Anyone who gets natural gas in their home is paying a natural gas bill, and the Railroad Commission determines how much they pay.” Power generators go through a rate-making process with local city councils, but “if a gas company doesn’t like what a city council decides, they can take it to the Railroad Commission, and they have final say,” Palacios said. “That’s important for voters to know, because these companies donate to the commissioners’ campaigns, any amount, any time of year, even as the rates are being decided.”
Why the Name Remains the Same
If the Railroad Commission’s name endures, it’s not for want of efforts to change it, and it hasn’t always been due to internal resistance, either. In their responses to the 2011 Sunset Commission report, two of the three railroad commissioners at the time agreed that a name change was in order. Then-Commissioner Victor Carrillo said he preferred renaming it the Texas Energy Commission, but said he would also support naming it the Texas Oil and Gas Commission. Then-Commissioner Michael Williams also supported renaming it the Texas Energy Commission.
“The Commission agrees that its name is potentially confusing and does not accurately describe the Commission’s present duties,” agency staff wrote in the official response to the 2013 sunset review. “Changing the name of the Commission would help citizens better understand the Commission’s duties and ensure increased transparency for its primary role in overseeing energy exploration and production in Texas — eliminating confusion regarding any ongoing role with railroads.”
During the sunset reviews, industry lobbyists remained publicly neutral on the issue. “While neutral on changing the name of the agency due to constitutional as well as federal and state delegation concerns, if the name were changed, it should be changed to the Texas Energy Commission,” Texas Oil and Gas Association lobbyist Ben Sebree wrote in his response to the sunset report in 2011. Testifying before a state Senate committee in 2013, Permian Basin Petroleum Association lobbyist David Holt said, “We would not want any unintended consequences by not doing the name change exactly right.” Holt was referring to a legal question about whether the name change should be accomplished by legislation or through a constitutional amendment, but he said nothing about his organization’s position on the agency’s name itself.
Cyrus Reed, conservation director of the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club, who lobbied for a name change in all three of the sunset reviews over the last decade, said the industry’s public neutrality masks a preference for the status quo.
“In general, while not being perhaps as open about it, many oil and gas interests like having some anonymity about the agency and what it does,” he said. Like Palacios, Reed said he is especially concerned that voters may not understand the stakes of commissioner elections. “Most folks do not pay attention to the [railroad commissioner] race in the same way they might when electing a senator, governor or even [government land office] commissioner. And yet it is perhaps one of the most important parts of our government, since oil and gas (and other regulated resources) are so important.”
The Permian Basin Petroleum Association’s position appears to have hardened since 2013. “The RRC has been regulating the industry for over a century, helping win two world wars, and is now ushering in another exceptional century of American energy dominance. Texans should be proud of this storied history,” spokesman Michael Lozano wrote in an email to Capital & Main. “We do not believe the name should be changed.” The Texas Oil and Gas Association did not respond to requests for comment.
The Railroad Commission also appears less supportive of a name change than it was during the 2011 and 2013 sunset reviews. In 2022, Christi Craddick, who was first elected commissioner in 2012, took over the chairmanship of the agency. Craddick is the daughter of Tom Craddick, the longest-serving legislator in the history of the Texas House of Representatives, and the family’s close ties to the oil and gas industry are well documented. In 2022, the Craddick family earned about $10 million from its interests in oil and gas, according to an analysis of county tax and state oil records by Texas Monthly journalist Russell Gold.
“Chairman Christi Craddick does not support a name change for the Railroad Commission of Texas,” commission spokesperson Mia Hutchens wrote in an email to Capital & Main. “The name is steeped in history that has led the Texas oil and gas industry to international prestige. A name change would incur cost [sic] that Texas taxpayers would have to bear. And lastly, a name change could jeopardize federal permits and primacy efforts under an administration that seeks to cripple the Texas energy industry in any way possible.”
Palacios disagreed.
“None of those are good reasons,” said Palacios. “I think that the people who know what the Railroad Commission does tend to be people in the oil and gas industry and mineral owners. If those are the only informed voters going to the polls, then the people who are currently in power like it that way.”
