Commission Shift Statement on the End of the 2021 Regular Legislative Session
Virginia Palacios
Executive Director, Commission Shift
This is part 2 of our blog series about the anniversary of Winter Storm Uri. Read Part 1 here.
The Railroad Commission, our state oil and gas agency, sets the rules for weatherizing natural gas, a major source of fuel that feeds energy into our electric grid. In order to protect us from another catastrophic event like 2021’s Winter Storm Uri, we need the Railroad Commission to develop rules that they will effectively enforce and that will result in a beneficial change. But one major problem is preventing this from happening: oil and gas executives who are resistant to paying for necessary weatherization protections fund the campaigns of both Texas Legislators and Railroad Commissioners.
This is why we can’t have nice things.
In 2021, Commission Shift published a series of reports titled Captive Agency . Our analysis found that the sitting Railroad Commissioners received more than two-thirds of their campaign donations from the same companies they were making decisions about in their official capacity. In addition to campaign contributions, each commissioner held some kind of personal financial interest in some of the companies overseen by the Railroad Commission. While the Railroad Commission’s recusal rules require commissioners not to vote on items they have a personal or private interest in, until November 2025 , we had not seen a recusal from a sitting Railroad Commissioner for reasons related to personal or private interests. (1)
Additionally, the recusal rules do not extend to campaign contributions. Sitting railroad commissioners are allowed to take campaign contributions from any person, at any amount, at any time of year, and they do not have to recuse themselves from votes involving those people or their companies.
While state legislators are not allowed to accept campaign contributions during the legislative session, they also don’t have to recuse themselves from decisions involving their campaign donors. For example, during the 2025 Legislative Session, Commission Shift Action , the legislative partner of Commission Shift, lobbied for changes to Senate Bill 1150, a bill that sought to limit inactive well plugging extensions and address the problem of orphaned oil and gas wells in Texas. Too often, legislative staff told us legislators couldn’t accept our recommendations because oil and gas companies would kill the bill. That happens because there are too many legislators who feel their constituents matter less than oil and gas companies.
To fix this problem, we need significant public pressure calling for better recusal policies, campaign finance limitations, and a clear way to enforce those standards. Then we can have nice things.
In the years leading up to Winter Storm Uri, the Railroad Commission maintained an unofficial group called the Texas Energy Reliability Council (TERC). It consisted of electric companies, gas companies, and regulators, and they would theoretically meet to ensure reliability of the grid. But after Winter Storm Uri, it became clear those meetings had not happened as often as they should have, nor did they accomplish anything meaningful. So the Texas Legislature formalized the TERC in Senate Bill 3 in 2021, but they also decided to make their meetings secret and give the TERC the ultimate privilege: the ability to oversee the state’s electricity supply chain map. (2) Only limited public officials; executives of state energy agencies; and appointees in the oil and gas industry, electric industry, and energy sector can see the map. Giving just a handful of companies closed-door access to state regulators and the electricity supply chain map creates an unfair business advantage for those companies that is free from public scrutiny.
When the Railroad Commission voted for its appointees to the TERC (3), they voted on representatives from Energy Transfer and Enterprise Products Partners, both companies that Railroad Commissioner Christi Craddick had a financial interest in. Energy Transfer and Enterprise Products Partners are transmission pipeline companies that profited from natural gas scarcity during Winter Storm Uri. Energy Transfer was the single largest beneficiary of Winter Storm Uri (4), raking in $2.4 billion in a matter of days, and is still listed on Commissioner Craddick’s most recent Personal Financial Statement (2024) . She did not recuse herself from the vote.
When decision-makers like the railroad commissioners have a financial interest in the companies they are supposed to be overseeing, the decisions they make are embedded with bias. Instead of ensuring a hardened, reliable grid, those influenced decision-makers may use a light touch with companies that violate their rules. This kind of bias can extend past the elected railroad commissioners down to the division directors and field inspectors that implement the rules, particularly because those staff members know the railroad commissioners make decisions about their pay raises. (5)
To build a resilient grid, we need energy regulators to be independent from companies they regulate. Building back public trust would require:
In the fall of 2025, RRC weatherization inspectors gave passing inspections to all but two facilities for installing any weatherization at all – nevermind how effective it would be. (6) The Railroad Commission’s response was that enforcing weatherization best practices at natural gas facilities was “unworkable.”
The Railroad Commission can’t keep doing the same thing and expecting different results. Securing the grid means the agency has to break free from a 130-year-old mindset of letting the industry police itself.
Stay tuned for our next blog about Winter Storm Uri: The Railroad Commission still has a role to play to strengthen the grid — What’s at stake?
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1. Commission Shift. Nov. 19, 2025. Historic Recusal at the Railroad Commission. https://commissionshift.org/news/historic-recusal-at-the-railroad-commission/
2. See Tex. Gov’t Code. Sec. 418.301; Sec. 418.309 (c); and Tex. Utilities Code. Sec. 38.204.
3. RRC Commissioners Appoint Members to Texas Energy Reliability Council (Railroad Commission of Texas., 2021), https://www.rrc.texas.gov/news/101221-terc-appointments/.
4. Bloomberg. May 6, 2021. “Energy Transfer Made $2.4 Billion From Texas Winter Storm,” accessed January 27, 2026, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-06/energy-transfer-made-2-4-billion-gain-from-texas-winter-storm.
5. Sunset Advisory Commission, Sunset Advisory Commission Staff Report with Final Results: Railroad Commission of Texas (Austin, Texas, 2017). p. 22. https://www.sunset.texas.gov/reviews-and-reports/agencies/railroad-commission-texas.
6. Mose Buchele, “Texas Promised to Winterize Its Energy Grid. An Audit Found Big Problems.,” Energy & Environment, KUT Radio, Austin’s NPR Station, August 18, 2025, https://www.kut.org/energy-environment/2025-08-18/texas-energy-grid-winterize-blackouts-audit.
Commission Shift Statement on the End of the 2021 Regular Legislative Session
