At the May 12th Open Meeting of the Railroad Commission of Texas, Commission Shift Executive Director Virginia Palacios spoke about how the RRC must take both preventative and responsive measures to protect drinking water and infrastructure against the threat of well leaks and blowouts.
View a written copy of Virginia Palacios’s public comments here.
Several other community members also gave public comments at the meeting. View their comments here:
Schuyler Wight, Pecos County Rancher
Lindsey Gulden, Carbon Capture & Storage (CCS) researcher
Alexis Iwasiw, CCS researcher
The Railroad Commission (RRC) permits, monitors, and enforces rules for all Texas oil and gas development. RRC decisions are critical to public health and climate emissions, yet the agency operates with little public accountability. For instance, the three elected Commissioners have deep financial ties to the industry they regulate, with two-thirds of their campaign contributions coming from oil and gas.
The RRC holds monthly open meetings. While challenging to follow, the open meetings are a valuable opportunity to get issues on the record and learn more about decisions that affect us and our communities.
The open meeting agenda for May 12, 2026 at 9:30 AM is available.
Below are our agenda highlights with some additional notes and context.
Item 4. Waste Facilities, Inc. (WFI) has a permit for a Division 2, “on-lease commercial solid oil and gas recycling facility,” which allows it to recycle oil and gas waste on the same lease the waste was generated from and use the waste as road base on lease roads. WFI challenged the conditions of its permit renewal claiming that its permit never previously limited its recycling of waste to waste that was generated on-lease and that doing so would be uneconomic. RRC staff provided evidence of WFI’s permits dating back to 2014 that included this limitation, and public comments WFI made in a 2013 rulemaking indicating WFI was aware of this limitation in the Division 2 rules. Still, WFI is claiming that the RRC staff are misinterpreting the rule. RRC staff pointed out that WFI could have applied for a Division 3 or 4 permit which would allow it to recycle waste from multiple leases, consistent with WFI’s business model.
WFI claims that because of this limitation, it has been unable to perform its mobile recycling operations for the last two years. This could imply that WFI was violating its permit limitations in prior years.
WFI also requested that the commission allow use of the recycled product as “treated aggregate,” and not only roadbase material, in WFI’s permit. RRC Staff responded that they can only provide authorization for other types of reuse on a case-by-case basis if they know how the product will specifically be used, which WFI had not made clear.
Items 5 – 7. Mineral owners are protesting Trivista Operating’s good faith claim to operate three leases in Bastrop County. The wells had no production for 60 days, and the company did not rework the wells within that time, terminating the lease. Wells on two of the leases had been equipped for swabbing even though the operator did not have an exception on file with the commission that would allow it to do so. RRC staff recommend the Commission “find Trivista does not have a good faith claim to operate the Wells, order any plugging extensions canceled, and order Trivista to plug and abandon the Wells.”
Item 8. RRC staff recommend denial of Sahara Operating Company’s P-5 organization report. The company claimed that it did not receive the RRC’s 90- or 30-day letters, and did not complete surface cleanup or certify the work by completing a Form W-3C. Several of the wells were inactive for 25 years or more and failed their mechanical integrity tests. The company submitted these failed tests to the commission late and claimed it believed “that all well compliance issues that prevented approval of its P-5 Renewal have been resolved or will be resolved prior to May 12, 2026.” The company holds 32 inactive wellbores, 12 of which are noncompliant.
There are 8 flaring rule exception requests on the agenda.
All exception requests granted.
Twenty-three companies appear to be out of compliance with Rule 15 inactive well requirements with 499 inactive wells. RRC can prevent them from operating in Texas until they comply, which could include plugging or removing surface equipment.
Major contributors to future orphaned counts this month include Vaquero Operating (132 inactive wells) with repeat violations dating to 2022, Eagle Capitol Partners (36 wells) facing other active enforcement actions, and Lucky Lad Energy (21 wells) with prior enforcement actions in 2024 and 2025.
Repeat violations often involve marginal operators who maximize profits from active wells while building inactive-well inventories. When enforcement makes operations unprofitable, these companies abandon their wells, shifting the financial burden of plugging to the public.
Item 54. The RRC will have another opportunity to consider revoking Bayou Bend CCS LLC’s authority to operate in Texas, due to the company’s failure to bring its inactive wells into compliance. Bayou Bend CCS has an onshore test well that it should have either plugged or requested a plugging extension for. This item was on last month’s Open Meeting agenda, and Chairman Wright requested more time with the item to consider it at the May Open Meeting.
Chairman Wright said the company had come into compliance.
Item 424. EPA released new guidance clarifying that oil and natural gas producers can flare associated gas for up to 30 days in response to temporary service interruptions, despite the new prohibition on routine flaring under the methane rule (that went into effect on May 7th). This provision applies to operational constraints such as pipeline capacity limitations, equipment outages, operational failures, or sudden production increases.
Following this update, Commissioner Craddick asked whether this 30-day allowance exempts operators from needing to obtain a flaring permit from the Railroad Commission during that period.The presenter clarified that the guidance only interprets existing federal rules and does not exempt operators from needing state authorizations from the Railroad Commission or TCEQ. The provision applies to operational constraints outside an operator’s control, such as midstream equipment failures or regional oversupply. The provision does not change current Texas state rules or procedures.
Item 425. The commissioners will vote on potential adoption of the proposed amendments to Form W-3C to support the implementation of amendments to 16 TAC §§3.15 and 3.107.
Amendments to Form W-3C approved.
The deadline to sign up to address the commission on an agenda item or during public input is noon Mon, May 11th . (Note: They don’t have to call on you if you’re commenting on an agenda item).
People who want to speak on an item that is NOT on the agenda, must register to do so in the Public Input section. Note: you may not speak about an agenda item in the Public Input section.
RRC Open Meetings typically last less than half an hour.
Commission Shift’s Virginia Palacios will be giving public input in person. Following the open meeting at 3 p.m. CST, we’ll also host a virtual debrief of the meeting’s agenda items and related topics. You can catch it streamed live on our Facebook page.
