House Energy Resources to Question Railroad Commission on Public Comment, Severed Wells and P-13 Hazards

The Texas House Committee on Energy Resources will gavel in at 8:30 a.m. Sept. 15 in Capitol Extension room E2.026 for the second of two consecutive interim hearings, opening with an oversight review of the Railroad Commission of Texas that the committee’s chairman has already told one commissioner he expects him to answer for on the record. Texans who do not testify may file written comments on every item, including the oversight topics, through the committee’s online portal until adjournment, and testimony may be limited at the chair’s discretion, according to the hearing notice.

Rep. Drew Darby, R–San Angelo, chairs the 11-member panel — six Republicans and five Democrats — with Rep. Eddie Morales, D–Eagle Pass, as vice chair, according to the committee’s page. Energy Resources holds jurisdiction over the Railroad Commission, pipelines, mineral development and the state’s energy conservation programs. The agency-oversight charge will be heard on invited testimony only. The three well-related charges are open to public and invited witnesses, which makes this the day for anyone outside the industry to be heard.

The agency oversight charge is written broadly, citing the committee’s authority under Section 301.014 of the Government Code and covering the Railroad Commission, the State Energy Conservation Office and the state’s representatives to three interstate compacts. Darby has already narrowed it. The Dispatch reported that the commission voted 2-1 on Aug. 18 to strike its standing public comment item from future agendas, with Chairman Christi Craddick casting the dissent, and that Darby wrote Commissioner Wayne Christian on Aug. 25 that he was adding the matter to this hearing and expected him “to be prepared to address it on the record at that time.” The change came after the agency adopted a public engagement policy it described as expanding access statewide.

The severed well operations charge takes up a quieter enforcement lever. When an operator falls out of compliance, the commission can sever the lease, cutting off the authority to produce until the problem is fixed. The notice directs members to review the rules governing severance and the process by which an operator resumes operations afterward, then to recommend fixes for any safety and compliance concerns the review turns up.

The orphaned wells charge is a monitoring assignment on a law this committee helped write. Senate Bill 1150 by Sen. Mayes Middleton, R–Galveston, requires the plugging of and reporting on inactive wells under Railroad Commission jurisdiction and authorizes an administrative penalty. Energy Resources reported it 9-0, and Darby sponsored it in the House alongside Reps. Charlie Geren, R–Fort Worth, Armando Walle, D–Houston, and Morales. It took effect Sept. 1, 2025, except for Section 1, which the enrolled bill delays to Sept. 1, 2027 — so the committee is reviewing a statute not yet fully in force. Members are asked to identify strategies to keep inactive wells from becoming orphaned in the first place, the stage at which the state ends up paying. The Dispatch has reported on that end of the pipeline, including 42 coastal orphaned wells plugged by the commission and the General Land Office and a plugging project on leaking wells in Baffin Bay.

The P-13 water wells charge is the most technical item on the notice and the one with the least settled law behind it. Form P-13 is the commission’s “Application of Landowner to Condition an Abandoned Well for Fresh Water Production” — the paperwork by which a surface owner and an operator jointly convert an abandoned oil or gas well into a water well. The landowner who takes the well also assumes the obligation to plug it, and more than 1,500 wells have been converted this way since 2001, according to the Texas Groundwater Protection Committee. The charge asks members to study hazards caused by discharges from those wells, decide which agency should hold primary regulatory authority, and identify funding to plug the ones that fail.

Because this is an interim hearing, the committee will take no votes and no legislation is before it. What members hear will shape the panel’s interim report and the energy bills filed for the 90th Legislature, which convenes in January 2027.

Meeting at a glance

Committee members

• Rep. Drew Darby, R–San Angelo (HD-72) — Chair
• Rep. Eddie Morales, D–Eagle Pass (HD-74) — Vice Chair
• Rep. Tom Craddick, R–Midland (HD-82)
• Rep. Jay Dean, R–Longview (HD-7)
• Rep. Paul Dyson, R–Bryan (HD-14)
• Rep. Josey Garcia, D–San Antonio (HD-124)
• Rep. Gary Gates, R–Richmond (HD-28)
• Rep. Stan Gerdes, R–Smithville (HD-17)
• Rep. R.D. “Bobby” Guerra, D–Mission (HD-41)
• Rep. Ron Reynolds, D–Missouri City (HD-27)
• Rep. Jon E. Rosenthal, D–Houston (HD-135)