Melder's Musings

I had originally planned to make this post one of my semi-regular "Crap Comment of the Day" features, but I still can't find an exact quote. As such, I'll do the best I can with what I've got.

This year's race for a seat on the Texas Railroad Commission brings us a multi-candidate contest in the March 4 Democratic Primary. Such an occurrence should be blog worthy enough, but it's the less-than-stellar positions espoused by a couple of those candidates that have kept liberal Texas bloggers like me at our respective keyboards.

The most noteworthy position concerns candidate Art Hall. A former member of the San Antonio City Council, Mr. Hall is running for the Railroad Commission while his wife is an employee of San Antonio-based Valero Energy. Here in Texas, the Railroad Commission has nothing to do with railroads (which you'll need to remember as you keep reading). It does, however, regulate the oil and gas industry. In short, Mr. Hall seeks to regulate the very corporation that employs his wife. Most thinking people would see a conflict of interest here. Mr. Hall says that no such conflict exists.

Mr. Hall was reportedly asked the potential conflict during a candidate forum in Decatur. He reportedly answered the question by saying that he contacted Valero to ask about any conflict and they told him there wasn't one. This is why I'm trying to find an exact quote. I can only imagine how silly his answer must have sounded. Imagine asking the people that employ your wife if your regulating them could create a conflict of interest. Now imagine the answer. I think his answer could prove to be an excellent entry for a "Crap Comment of the Day."

Mr. Hall's self-serving and short-sighted answer first came to my attention with of a post written by "McBlogger" on the Burnt Orange Report. You can read the same post at the blog run by "McBlogger" directly. In his (or her) post, "McBlogger" provides us a link to another blog post on the subject. The Bluedaze blog offers additional reporting and commentary on Art Hall's confusion about what exactly constitutes a conflict of interest. The Wise County Messenger also reported Mr. Hall's denial that a conflict exists.

Unfortunately for Mr. Hall, conflicts of interest aren't the only things that seem to escape his full understanding. It is reported by Bluedaze, after a post on PoliTex (a blog written by political reporters for the Fort-Worth Star Telegram), that Mr. Hall is also confused about what exactly the Texas Railroad Commission (officially known as the Railroad Commission of Texas) does.

If you've been paying attention, you know by now that the Railroad Commission has nothing to do with railroads. With this longstanding matter of law in full effect, Mr. Hall proceeded to, according to PoliTex, "list 'railroad safety' as one of the 'issues important to the Railroad Commission of Texas.'" PoliTex reported Mr. Hall's apparent confusion on January 30. Since then, Mr. Hall has removed any mention of it from his website, but it continues to make its way across the blogosphere.

Not to be outdone by Mr. Hall, another of the Democratic candidates for the Railroad Commission decided that he would use Mr. Hall's apparent ignorance of the Railroad Commission's authority to trumpet his own lack of understanding. We turn again to the Bluedaze blog and to the PoliTex blog. It was to PoliTex that candidate Mark Thompson, only two days after Mr. Hall's latest gaffe was exposed, chose to reveal his own insufficient knowledge of the job he wants us to elect him for.

According to PoliTex, Thompson told them "that the Texas Railroad Commission has no control over home heating rates charged inside cities. 'When you think about it, they don’t control rates in the cities' said Thompson." PoliTex corrected Thompson's failed thinking by reporting that "although cities have so-called 'original jurisdiction' over cost-of-service gas rates charged within their boundaries, utilities like Atmos can appeal city decisions to the Texas Railroad Commission. The Railroad Commission conducts hearings, considers evidence and then makes rulings." They've done it before.

To be completely fair, both Mr. Hall and Mr. Thompson seem to be impressive people with impressive credentials and experience. Where they fail to impress me is in asking me to elect them to a position of which they obviously don't have a complete understanding. This only leaves Democratic primary goers with one choice on March 4. That choice is Dale Henry. Mr. Henry has the knowledge and experience necessary to do the job.

According to Vince Leibowitz, a supporter of Mr. Henry who defends him at the Bluedaze blog, "Dale Henry, as a petroleum engineer, worked in oilfield services and in research and development. It is a little different than the association which Mr. Hall's wife has with the oil companies. Also, Dale was an independent subcontractor for the Texas Railroad Commission (working for the Commission and not the oil companies) plugging abandoned wells. It was in this capacity that he got first-hand exposure to many of the failures of the [Railroad Commission]."

I'll be casting my Railroad Commission vote for Dale Henry on March 4. I encourage my fellow Democrats to do the same.