(Bloomberg) --Texas Democrat Luke Warford is looking to do what no one from his party has managed to do in almost 30 years -- win statewide office.
In his quest to help lead the Lone Star state's powerful oil regulator, the 33-year-old former energy consultant has gained the support of his opponent's chief rival for the Republican nomination, Sarah Stogner, who after losing the primary and endorsing Warford quit the party altogether.
Warford -- who raised more than $1 million in the past year -- is battling more than just lack of name recognition as he seeks to unseat Republican incumbent Wayne Christian on the Texas Railroad Commission. Polling show voters leaning toward Christian, 72, whose close ties to the industry he oversees include a $100,000 donation from an oilfield-waste company just days after he voted to approve a key dump permit.
Meanwhile, Christian's campaign has been flush with oil and gas money. Over the past year he raised more than $1.2 million, including contributions from the political arms of explorers such as ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil Corp. and APA Corp., as well as several $10,000 donations from individual energy CEOs.
Warford stands in stark contrast to Christian's avowed skepticism toward climate change and renewable energy. When a 2021 UN report said climate change should be a "death knell" to fossil fuels, Christian told an oil conference that avoiding global warming wouldn't be worth the cost of decarbonizing the economy. A better solution, he said, would be to "turn the damn air conditioner up."
With less than a week to go until the Nov. 8 election, Christian held a 14-point lead over Warford, according to a University of Houston's Hobby School of Public Affairs poll. The online survey of 1,200 likely Texas voters was conducted Oct. 19-26 and had a 2.8% margin of error.
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That's one of the reasons no Democrat has won statewide office in Texas since 1994. You'd have to go back another four years before that to find the last Democrat to win a seat on the railroad commission, which evolved from a regulator of locomotives to fossil fuels more than a century ago.
The commission, Texas' oldest regulatory agency, employs more than 900 people and has a annual budget of almost $150 million. The agency, which provided the template for OPEC's founders in 1960, is governed by three commissioners who serve staggered, six-year terms. Only one seat is up for election this year.
The commission's duties include issuing drilling permits, inspecting wells and ensuring companies follow state and federal laws on safety and pollution. It also has the authority to strictly ration crude production in response to global price gyrations, a step most-recently considered during the early 2020 oil-market collapse.
Warford, who has won support from editorial boards of four major Texas newspapers, has said he'd challenge the agency's laissez-faire approach to flaring, the practice of burning off excess natural gas that flows out of oil wells. He condemned the approval of flaring requests via so-called consent agendas, or using a single up-or-down vote to allow dozens of permits en masse.
"The vast majority of the things that are passed right now are passed on the consent agenda, with no discussion, no witnesses, no public hearings, no accountability and no transparency," Warford said. "As an individual commissioner, I could dissent and force more transparency, more public debate on these issues."
Most of Warford's campaign cash has come from individual contributions under $100. Actress Jane Fonda voiced support for Warford in a social-media post on Wednesday.
As for Christian, his largest single contribution in recent months was $100,000 in May from Sayad Javaid Anwar, the Midland Energy Inc. president who gives generously to Texas Republicans.
"It says that I support pro-business policies that create jobs and reduce the cost of energy for consumers," Christian told Bloomberg via email.
The oil and gas industry contributed $15 million to political campaigns of Republican railroad commissioners between 2015 and 2020, representing 67% of total contributions during that time, according to non-profit watchdog group Commission Shift.
(Updates with Jane Fonda's endorsement in 12th paragraph.)
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