Many years ago when my husband and I moved to Houston from Seattle I heard an ad on the radio that perplexed me. We had just moved and had not yet changed our driver's licenses nor had we registered to vote. The ad must have been played during an election cycle. A man with a soft drawl quietly declared "what is good for business is good for Texas." What does this mean, I wondered?
I was also profoundly confused when I heard our then mayor, a Democrat mind you, in response to a question about the city's abundant pot holes, tell a newspaper reporter that we are lucky to live in a city where everyone who wants a job can have one. The mayor insisted that we can afford to pay for our car repairs in Houston. He concluded that we are better off than we would be in a city with no potholes but with fewer jobs. What? I wondered. What do potholes and jobs have in common?
Finally, the mind blowing issue that stunned me the most in this then little regulated, no zoning and somewhat lawless city, was the fact that car insurance was not mandatory. Not knowing this my husband and I immediately purchased a car insurance policy within days of our arrival.
So alas when an uninsured driver whacked into my car at a stop sign one rainy afternoon, the police ticketed the driver for the accident but there was no penalty for driver's lack of insurance. Long story short, my insurance company paid for the damages and my insurance rates went up for simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I remember telling my husband that there is no way we could stay in this seemingly lawless city despite the fact that he had been offered a fantastic teaching position at one of the city's private universities. It was a dream job for him and we ended up staying. I found my dream jobs too so it made sense to try to stick it out.
Once we made a commitment to stay in Houston we registered to vote. We vote. We joined our neighborhood's Civic Club. We volunteered at our son's former public K-12 schools, joined the PTOs and served on its boards as well as the schools' shared decision making teams. We became sustaining members of our county's Democratic Party.
Activism makes a difference. Small steps.
There is no doubt that Houston and Texas have changed a lot since we arrived in this former oil boom town. Drivers are now required to purchase car insurance. There is still no zoning but neighborhoods have imposed deed restrictions that help to maintain the residential integrity of subdivisions and city neighborhoods. (Except for the proliferation of high rise apartments/condos in upscale city neighborhoods inside the 610 Loop.) We still tend to elect Democrats for mayors though none are the same kind of good ol' boy as the one who served when we arrived. We now expect our mayors to be more sensitive to the needs of the city's residents.
But some things have not changed. Individuals are pretty much on their own because of the lax oversight of the chemical industry.
What is good for business is good for Texas businesses and the politicians that are business friendly. Sometimes at the expense of Texas residents and the environment.
And so I was not surprised to learn, in this Republican anti-regulation state of Texas, that two oil and gas regulators were recently fired for doing their jobs.
The reason?
They had the nerve to enforce the the rules.
PEARSALL, Texas — During their careers as oil and gas inspectors for the Texas Railroad Commission, Fred Wright and Morris Kocurek earned merit raises, promotions, and praise from their supervisors.
They went about their jobs—keeping tabs on the conduct of the state’s most important industry—with gusto.
But they may have done their jobs too well for the industry’s taste—and for their own agency’s.
Kocurek and Wright, who worked in different Railroad Commission districts, were fired within months of each other in 2013. Both say their careers were upended by their insistence that oil and gas operators follow rules intended to protect the public and the environment.
This should come as no surprise to any of us. After all this state has been driven by crony capitalism and pay to play politics. The oil and gas industry has contributed hundreds of millions of dollars to most of the Republican politicians, from state lawmakers to Governor Rick Perry to the two U.S. Senators in Washington, D.C. The donors expect more than a little bang from their bucks.
The investigation has found that the Railroad Commission and its sister agency, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, focus more on protecting the industry than the public, an approach tacitly endorsed by the state’s political leaders. The Railroad Commission is controlled by three elected commissioners who, combined, accepted nearly $3 million in campaign contributions from the industry during the 2012 and 2014 election cycles, according to data from the National Institute on Money in State Politics. Gov. Rick Perry collected a little less than $11.5 million in campaign contributions from those in the industry since the 2000 election cycle. The governor-elect, Attorney General Greg Abbott, accepted more than $6.8 million.
Mr. Wright had a reputation for being a stickler and was frequently asked to bend the rules.
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