MIDLAND, Texas — Early voting is currently underway, and there is a big seat up for grabs. Four candidates are vying for Texas Railroad Commissioner.
The four candidates are Tom Slocum, Sarah Stogner, Dawayne Tipton, and Jaime Diez.
A fifth candidate, Marvin Summers, is still on the ballot. However, Summers recently died in an accident. Summers had been on the ballot long before the accident, and now his name can't be removed from the ballot.
The RRC plays a huge role here in the Permian Basin and pretty much regulates everything in the oil and gas industry.
Recently in the Permian Basin, earthquakes have become a hot topic of discussion. So it's no surprise that the candidates were asked about trying to fix the issue of the increased number of earthquakes in the area.
Stogner believes that we need more input to get to the root of the problem from the people that know the most about earthquakes: geologists and engineers.
"I think we've got to look to our geologists and engineers and come up with some good solutions, with a long term big picture. 15 to 20 million barrels a day of water, what are we going to do with it? Maybe we could send it to Lake Mead. Let's be a water capital," Stogner said.
As for Diez, he's focused on slowing the water injection rate to see how that affects the number of quakes.
"We should not drop the water injection to zero but maybe to something like 25 or 30 percent, and also for the time being, we should not issue any more permits in the immediate area," Diez said.
Another big topic of conversation? Coming up with a plan to be better prepared for severe winter weather. It's an issue that the Permian Basin has dealt with over the last couple years. Dawayne Tipton believes there's a simple response.
"We need to encourage the critical natural gas infrastructure to be winterized and weatherized. If I'm elected, the next time we have forecasted temps below 25, I'll have created a task force to go out there and ensure that we're prepared for the winter storm. I will not give exemptions for critical natural gas infrastructure," Tipton said.
Slocum said that we also need to be taking measurements and monitoring the facilities more frequently.
"Actually do auditing on more than just a semi-annual basis perhaps even quarterly basis of the gas flow and making sure that we're taking measurements all the time. If we do have gauges in there to measure what the gas is doing in these critical points, and we can keep closer tabs on it," Slocum said.
Election day is set for March 1.