UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 9, 2022 · 11:16:18 PM +00:00 · April Siese
Commission Shift, the watchdog group continuing to hold the RRC accountable, has issued a statement about the RRC following Christian’s re-election:
“Voting is an important part of the democratic process and our American identity. The ability to vote—to choose who represents our interests and needs in a decision making capacity—is a right and a privilege. For too many, taking time to learn about candidates and accessing a polling location is overly complicated and impractical.
Commission Shift values good government. That means that state agencies should be ethical, proactive, transparent, accessible, and accountable to the people and places they serve. We also believe in inclusive decision making—so that landowners, mineral owners, and people from all socioeconomic backgrounds, languages, races, ethnicities, and geographies across Texas have a right to inform the decisions that affect their lives.
Realizing those values at the Railroad Commission of Texas means that the Texas Legislature has an obligation to change the name of the agency to reflect what they actually do. Anything less is a disservice to the people of Texas and to our American democracy.
Having a strong democracy includes more than showing up to the polls. We look forward to collaborating with all of the commissioners through the commission’s regular Open Meetings, rule-making processes, and other hearings, and we hope to involve many more Texans in these opportunities. We also look forward to participating in the upcoming legislative session to promote the many changes that are needed at the Railroad Commission that must be addressed through state law.”
On the long list of abhorrent views Texas Railroad Commissioner Wayne Christian holds and has spoken about since first beginning his political career more than 25 years ago, the re-elected climate denier can now add antisemite thanks to his midterm campaign. Christian, whose eventually retracted campaign slogan boasted that he was “the only Christian on the ballot,” bested Democrat Luke Warford on Tuesday night. Warford likely would’ve been the first Jewish commissioner in the history of the Railroad Commission of Texas and ran off a platform embracing “technology, innovation, and science,” which is nearly the exact opposite of Christian’s ideals.
Christian swore he had no idea about Warford’s religious background when he unveiled his campaign slogan, which he’s used before in other elections. He didn’t even bother to apologize to Warford, and his spokesperson tried to pass it off as merely a joke about Christian’s last name. Anti-Semitism is no laughing matter, and neither are the many other things that Christian stands for—including his blind love for oil and gas. Unlike nearly every other candidate whose finances I’ve researched over the course of my career, there isn’t an “uncoded” section topping Christian’s list of top lifetime campaign donors. That “uncoded” section comes second to the oil and gas industry, with interest groups, employees, executives, and trade organizations having donated nearly $2 million to Christian, whose current job it is to regulate them.
This is clearly a bad move for Texas given Christian’s tweets following his re-election victory.
Christian is famously a climate denier, which is less of a rarity than it should be for public officials. The Center for American Progress notes that the 117th Congress contains 139 climate-denying Republicans—a lower number than the Congress before it but still not great. Similar tracking mechanisms are rare for smaller offices like Texas Railroad Commissioner, though the agency itself has been famously plagued by issues thanks to its cozy relationship with polluters. One recent example of this comes from a 2021 Commission Shift report on the RRC’s conflicts of interest:
“An eight-year case involving the alleged contamination of a pond resulted in delayed soil cleanup without ongoing testing and monitoring. Commissioners sided with the well operator, holding a pipeline company responsible for soil remediation without penalizing the pipeline company for its noncompliance with agency requests to monitor the site. Commissioners [Christi] Craddick and Wayne Christian held stock for years in the company operating the well. Craddick reported buying shares in the pipeline company the year the case was decided. Commissioners Christian and Craddick collected $31,000 in campaign contributions from the companies.”
Christian’s name frequently shows up in conflict of interest matters, be it because of campaign donations, his stake in oil and gas companies, or his public sentiments towards the industry. The RRC has an entire page dedicated to Christian’s science misrepresenting and outright wrong editorial pieces, including a recent item on plugging abandoned oil wells in which Christian lies about oil and gas companies doing the right thing and consistently plugging non-producing wells. With takes like that, there’s no question Christian will continue to do little for the actual state he’s meant to serve while continuing to ignore the polluting industries burdening and outright killing his constituents.
