Every year, the Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC) publishes a Monitoring and Enforcement (M&E) Plan for the following fiscal year (FY). The state legislature requires RRC to seek input from stakeholders when developing the plan, so RRC typically opens a 30 day public comment period on the plan. Commission Shift welcomes this opportunity to provide feedback and has encouraged others to offer their own each year. The RRC publishes all public comments on the plan. This year, the public comments overwhelmingly called for the commission to adopt Commission Shift’s priorities.
Source: “Response to Oil and Gas Emergencies” presentation by the Railroad Commission of Texas, March 24th, 2026.
The RRC superficially included the following recommended action items in the FY 2027 Plan by adopting the titles but not the content of our recommendations:
The agency did not address, in title or content, some of the more substantive issues Commission Shift identified in our recommendations.
A major feature of the M&E plan is the RRC’s annual action item goals, which highlight its top priorities for the year. We’ve prepared a table that provides commentary on how and if the RRC incorporated Commission Shift’s recommendations into their annual goals. Our full public comments and recommendations on the plan are available here.
View this table as a PDF here.
We’re encouraged by the RRC’s partial adoption of some of our recommendations, and we will continue to advocate for more robust implementation of our recommendations. In particular, we want to see the agency develop an enforceable flaring rule and demonstrate a more timely and transparent response to public complaints. Furthermore, we will continue to push for higher quality inspections and swift enforcement actions, alongside stronger oversight for mechanical integrity testing.
