Best comment on state versus federal regulation of drilling

One of the best comments I’ve ever seen on the Star-Telegram:

pekingfrog wrote on 7/10/2010 7:46:22 PM:

Either you “drill baby drill” without any plan to clean up the gulf (or North Texas) with unregulated corporations and no scientific study of what the heck you are doing, OR you are a socialist, Obama-sympathizer-liberal. I get it. Maybe we should be talking about the Texas education system (or lack thereof).

This was a comment on the article, “Drilling dispute has hidden conflict: Who’s going to run Texas?” by Mitchell Schnurman.

I think this article presents a false argument. It assumes that some kind of regulating of oil and gas activity is occurring in Texas when the reality is that there is very little meaningful regulation at all.

• Texas has NO regulation specific to hydraulic fracturing. I’ve explained it all HERE with pictures. So, there is NO WAY federal regulation can interfere with state regulation in Texas.
• A statistical analysis found that Texas has the most drilling and the worst regulation.
• In Texas, industry self-regulates, meaning they are left on the honor system to report on themselves.

These two sentences from the article are surreal.

Texas has a long track record developing and monitoring gas drilling. And Perry, like many local leaders, has experience balancing the economy and the environment.

Monitor is defined as – one who warns, an overseer. Most people, I think, envision a regulatory agency that might investigate complaints and make determinations based on scientific investigations. The regulatory would oversee activity and warn of danger to vital resources. In my experience, that rarely happens with the Texas Railroad Commission. What does happen is this: the TRC routinely warns the operator when a complaint has been made and instructs them to do their own testing and remediation. Sometimes the TRC doesn’t even follow up to make sure the remediation was completed according to state rules. So, yeah, TRC monitors in that they warn the industry when we are watching them.

The last sentence above is too surreal. No, it’s flat out false, as in: NOT TRUE.