Message From the Editor

When Sue Franklin began waking up with “roaring headaches,” it was a clear sign that potentially deadly hydrogen sulfide gas from a close-by drilling site had contaminated the air inside her Texas home. But complaints to the Texas Railroad Commission, the state’s oil and gas regulator, went nowhere. The agency’s three commissioners – who all have industry ties – ultimately let the well continue operating, leading Sue and husband Jim to sell their ranch to the drilling company and move away. This sort of lax enforcement threatens the health and lives of Texans across the Permian Basin, according to a watchdog group’s new report. Amal Ahmed covers the story for DeSmog.

Industry-driven air pollution is just one of the Permian Basin’s problems. Nearly 4,000 earthquakes have shaken Texas in the past 12 months, as drillers continue to pump toxic wastewater out of oil and gas wells, and then inject it back into the ground elsewhere. “The quakes have even spurred the typically inert oil regulator the Texas Railroad Commission to order dozens of disposal wells to suspend operations,” reports DeSmog’s Sharon Kelly.

But wait, there’s more news out of the Lone Star State! Even as Exxon announced in mid-January that it would strive to emit net-zero fossil fuel pollution by 2050, the firm was also firing up a new and immense plastics production complex near Corpus Christi. “This is like pledging to become more energy-efficient when your business is manufacturing electric chairs,” quipped one activist on Twitter. A partnership with Saudi Basic Industries Corp., as Julie Dermansky reports, it’s on top of more than 30 new projects along the Texas and Louisiana coasts that are seeking to repurpose fossil fuels into plastics or petrochemicals – and which will generate 50 million tons of greenhouse-gas pollution, the equivalent of 11 new coal-fired power plants.

Have a story tip or feedback? Get in touch: editor@desmog.com.
Thanks,
Brendan DeMelle

Executive Director

P.S. We’re so grateful to everyone who donated to support DeSmog’s public interest journalism last year. We’re already turning your donations into new investigations, news, and research. If you’d like to help, can you donate $10 or $20 right now?

New Reports Allege Texas Oil and Gas Regulator’s Lax Enforcement

— By Amal Ahmed (5 min. read)—

When a Canadian company started drilling for oil and gas near Jim and Sue Franklin’s ranch in a small Permian Basin town called Verhalen, Texas, it didn’t bother the couple too much at first. But Sue suspects that it was the third well that started causing problems.
“They put up these big signs that said, ‘H2S gas, danger, keep out, blah blah blah,’” she says. The well was being drilled in what’s called a sour-gas field, an oil field that naturally has a high concentration of a deadly gas called hydrogen sulfide (H2S). The company promised the Franklins that the gas — which can cause headaches, irritate respiratory systems, and even be fatal in high concentrations — would never get into their home, despite the fact that it was barely a mile away.

Earthquakes. Drought. Geysers. Permian Oilfield Water Woes Pile up in West Texas

— By Sharon Kelly (9 min. read)—

At 8:00 a.m. Eastern on January 21, a magnitude 3.4 earthquake shook Culberson County in West Texas midway between Odessa and El Paso, the U.S. Geological Society reported. That’s the kind of earthquake that’s generally strong enough to be felt, but not rattling enough to cause damage.

Texas is not known for its seismic activity – or it wasn’t historically. Nearly 4,000 quakes, the majority relatively minor, have swarmed the oil-rich state over the past year. The most powerful among them was a 4.5 magnitude quake that rattled Midland in late December, tying for the second-strongest in a decade.

While Exxon Touts Net-Zero Promise, its Huge Plastics Complex Goes Online in Texas

— By Julie Dermansky (4 min. read) —

The same day ExxonMobil announced its ambition to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, word spread that its mammoth plastics manufacturing complex near Corpus Christi, Texas, had begun production.
“We are up and operating. We have been for a while,” Paul B. Fritsch, site manager for ExxonMobil’s joint venture with Saudi Basic Industries Corp, (SABIC), told the governing body of the Portof Corpus Christi at its Jan. 18 meeting.

EU Investigating Agribusiness Lobby Group Copa-Cogeca Over Potential Transparency Breach

— By Rachel Sherrington(3 min. read) —

The European Union is investigating a powerful farming industry group which no longer officially declares its lobbying budget, DeSmog can reveal.

Campaigners at transparency advocacy group Corporate Europe Observatory sparked the probe through a formal complaint to the EU last month, arguing that both parts of the European agricultural body Copa-Cogeca failed to provide accurate information on their activities.

EU Scientists and Politicians Clash Over Gas and Nuclear as ‘Sustainable’ Investments

— By Stella Levantesi (10 min. read) —

The UK government is not legally required to consider tax breaks to oil and gas companies or emissions from burning fossil fuels when regulating the North Sea sector, a court has ruled today, rejecting a complaint by climate campaigners.

At a judicial review hearing in December at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, campaigners argued that the Oil and Gas Authority (OGA) strategy was “unlawful” because it fails to take into account tax breaks for oil and gas companies when approving new projects.

Jordan Peterson’s Climate Expert is Science Denier Funded by Oil-Backed Think Tank

— By Adam Barnett (3 min. read) —

The source for author Jordan Peterson’s recent claim that climate change cannot be modelled was a climate science denier who received money from a libertarian think tank funded by oil companies.

The Canadian psychologist was widely criticised for spreading climate misinformation this week after telling the popular Joe Rogan podcast’s 11 million subscribers that climate models were full of errors that increase over time, and that climate is too complicated to model accurately.

From the Climate Disinformation Database: Texas Public Policy Foundation

The Texas Public Policy Foundation is a conservative think tank that claims to be a non-partisan institute protecting “liberty, personal responsibility, and free enterprise in Texas and the nation” with its “academically sound research and outreach” to policy makers about energy, environment, health care, higher education and more. Major polluters have been some of its biggest donors, though – including ExxonMobil and Koch Industries. In 2015, one of its advisors said CO2 “is not pollution, it’s necessary for survival,” and made scientifically misleading claims about past and current climate change.

Read the full profileand browse other individuals and organizations in our Climate Disinformation Database and Koch Network Database