Railroad Commission history
By BRENDA ALLUMS news1@kilgorenewsherald.com

Jaleesa Nelson and Kyle Shipp (not pictured) were named Students of the Month by the Kilgore Lions Club. Ken Holland, the KHS wood shop teacher, was named Teacher of the Month. Pictured with Holland and Jaleesa are her father, Eugene Nelson; KHS Assistant Principal Tim Banks; and, Lions President Chuck Maxwell.

The Railroad Commission of Texas is the oldest regulatory agency in the state and one of the oldest in the country, members of the Kilgore Lions Clubs learned Thursday.

Mike O’Quinn, district director for the TRRC, was featured speaker, and explained the commission was established in 1891 to regulate the rail industry of the 1800s.

“Since that time the Commission has been given the responsibility for overseeing the activities of many different industries,” O’Quinn said.

O’Quinn said the commissions considers environmental protection and preservation of individual property rights to be two of its primary responsibilities.

“It’s the oldest regulatory agency and has regulatory divisions that oversee the Texas oil and gas industry, gas utilities, pipeline safety, safety in the liquefied petroleum gas industry and the surface mining of coal and uranium,” he said.

Over the years, O’Quinn said, the commission’s jurisdiction gas grown to encompass many activities including oil and gas production and transportation, gas utilities, buses and trucks, liquefied petroleum gas, surface mining and reclamation and alternate fuels research. Economic regulation was joined by health, safety, and environmental regulation.

“The state's oil and gas industry is primary focus of the Railroad Commission.” he said.

The commission, through its Oil and Gas Division, regulates the exploration, production and transportation of oil and natural gas in Texas.

The commission has several roles: to prevent waste of the state's natural resources, to protect the correlative rights of different interest owners, ) to prevent pollution and to provide safety in matters such as hydrogen sulfide.

“We grant permits based on established spacing and density rules.” he said. “Each month the Commission assigns production allowables on oil wells and gas wells, receives operators' production reports on oil leases and gas wells and audits the oil disposition path to ensure production did not exceed allowables. Allowables are assigned according to factors such as tested well capability, reservoir mechanics, market demand for production and past production.”

O’Quinn said the commission also regulates oil field injection and disposal wells under a federally-approved program, “Fluids are injected into either productive reservoirs under enhanced recovery projects to increase production or into non-productive reservoirs for disposal,” he said.

The district director said the commission helps prevent pollution of the state’s surface and ground water resources through abandoned well plugging and abandoned site remediation program.”

“This program uses funds provided by industry through fees and taxes,” O’Quinn said. “Many wells and sites remediated with these funds when responsible operators could not be found.”

The Oil and Gas Division is headquartered in Austin and the Kilgore office is one of nine district offices spread over the state.