A great example of agency capture:
- When the power went out, Texas oil and gas regulators rushed to defend the industry’s image.When the power went out for Marsha Hendler on Feb. 15, she rushed to her downtown San Antonio office to ride out the winter storm. Thankful to find the electricity and heat still on, she typed out an email to the elected officials who regulate her small, independent oil and gas company.
“I strongly urge you to make public statements, to develop a PR program around our current energy conditions,” Hendler wrote at 2 p.m. that day to the three members of the Texas Railroad Commission, according to an email obtained by The Texas Tribune and ProPublica. “Assure citizens that blending oil and gas production with green [energy] will keep Texas energy strong.”
It’s a sentiment that many in the oil and gas industry echoed during a crisis that forced millions to endure freezing weather for days without electricity and eventually led to the deaths of more than 100 people. And even as Hendler typed, Railroad Commissioners Christi Craddick, Wayne Christian and Jim Wright, all Republicans, had already begun to do what she had requested.
Emails, tweets and public statements from the state commissioners during the Texas power crisis show that the elected regulators expressed immediate worry about the storm’s impact on the image of the agency and the industry it regulates — the industry that funds much of their political campaigns. At times, commissioners retweeted or emphasized the same talking points published by the Texas Oil and Gas Association, one of the state’s largest trade associations. They testified at public hearings and made public statements pushing back against criticisms of the natural gas industry’s role in the February power outages. And in some cases, they attempted to redirect blame from the fossil fuel industry to wind power — a narrative that quickly gained traction among Texas Republicans on social media.
The business sectors continues to dominate attention statewide:
- Gov. Greg Abbott publicly slammed Facebook. Privately, he’s courting the social media giant to build a second data center in Texas.
Broad details of the behind-the-scenes courting of Facebook are included in a letter from a lawyer representing the company.
Earlier this year, the Tech Transparency Project filed an open records request that sought communications between Abbott’s office and employees of certain technology companies, including Facebook. Instead of releasing the records, Abbott’s office asked Attorney General Ken Paxton to intervene on Facebook’s behalf, according to a letter obtained through a records request from the attorney general’s office.
The letter, by Justin Hoover, an attorney at the law firm Winstead PC who is representing Facebook, argued that the release of more than 100 pages of communications between the social media company and the governor’s office would expose confidential information including:
- The fact that Facebook is considering Texas as a site for its data center
- The project codename for the data center
- The name of the subsidiary that will purchase land for the data center
- The names of Facebook employees working on the project
- The nondisclosure agreement between Abbott’s office and Facebook
Executive power on display:
- Gov. Greg Abbott bans state agencies and state-funded organizations from requiring proof of COVID-19 vaccination.
Gov. Greg Abbott on Tuesday said he banned state agencies, political subdivisions or organizations receiving public funds from creating "vaccine passports" or otherwise requiring proof of a COVID-19 vaccine in order to receive services.
This comes as vaccine credentials, often referred to as vaccine passports, are being developed around the world as a way to quickly prove someone's vaccination status. It has become a fierce debate, with Republicans largely opposing the move, saying it is an infringement on individual freedoms and privacy. Supporters, including a number of private companies, point to the passports as a way to confidently return to activities and ensure safety at workplaces.
A handful of GOP-backed bills have been introduced in states across the U.S. aiming to restrict entities from requiring vaccines for their employees, including in Texas. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis also prohibited state agencies from using vaccine passports but went a step further and said no business can require their customers to display one.
