December 9, 2014

By David Hasemyer, InsideClimate News

PEARSALL, Texas—During their careers as oil and gas inspectors for the Texas Railroad Commission, Fred Wright and Morris Kocurek earned merit raises, promotions and praise from their supervisors.

They went about their jobs—keeping tabs on the conduct of the state’s most important industry—with gusto.

But they may have done their jobs too well for the industry’s taste—and for their own agency’s.

Kocurek and Wright, who worked in different Railroad Commission districts, were fired within months of each other in 2013. Both say their careers were upended by their insistence that oil and gas operators follow rules intended to protect the public and the environment.

The incidents Kocurek and Wright describe offer an inside look at how Texas regulates the oil and gas industry, a subject InsideClimate News and the Center for Public Integrity have been investigating for more than a year and a half.

The investigation has found that the Railroad Commission and its sister agency, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, focus more on protecting the industry than the public, an approach tacitly endorsed by the state’s political leaders. The Railroad Commission is controlled by three elected commissioners who, combined, accepted nearly $3 million in campaign contributions from the industry during the 2012 and 2014 election cycles, according to data from the National Institute on Money in State Politics. Gov. Rick Perry collected a little less than $11.5 million in campaign contributions from those in the industry since the 2000 election cycle. The governor-elect, Attorney General Greg Abbott, accepted more than $6.8 million.

Wright’s job with the Railroad Commission was a particularly important one.

The commission issues permits for oil and gas wells, and Wright spent much of his time inspecting newly built wells and determining whether they were safe enough to become operational. Shoddy well construction is considered a primary cause of groundwater contamination at drilling sites. His job also included making sure decommissioned wells were properly plugged with cement, so residual oil and gas didn’t pollute groundwater.

Wright was known as a stickler for regulations. One industry executive complained that Wright returned unapproved applications “dripping in red pen.”

Wright said he was often encouraged to bend the rules.

From the July 2013 complaint

In a July 2013 complaint he filed with the commission to protest his firing, he said his superiors told him to say “operators had complied with certain rules when they had not.” According to a letter his attorney wrote to the U.S. Department of Labor, he was “threatened, intimidated, and coerced into not requiring operators to comply with the rules and laws with which the RRC is charged with enforcing.”

Kocurek’s primary job was to enforce another Railroad Commission mandate: Making sure the industry’s often-toxic waste was disposed of properly. Kocurek said his bosses never directly told him to go easy on the industry but made it clear that’s what they wanted. He said they were slow to process the violation notices he issued and sometimes assigned follow-up investigations to more lenient inspectors.

The Railroad Commission declined to comment on the men’s dismissals. Spokeswoman Ramona Nye said the agency doesn’t discuss personnel issues.

Wright, 64, and his attorney declined to be interviewed for this article because of his pending litigation, but hundreds of pages of records released under the Texas Public Information Act provide details about the deterioration of his career. Wright has filed a civil lawsuit alleging wrongful termination. He has also filed a federal whistleblower complaint.

Former Railroad Commission inspector Morris Kocurek checks the compliance of an oil and gas waste facility. (Credit: Hector Zertuche)

Kocurek, 61, hasn’t taken any legal action. He said he prefers to forget about his 18-month stint with the Railroad Commission.

Several of the accounts Kocurek shared in interviews for this report were corroborated by documents obtained from the Railroad Commission through the open-records requests and by Deputy Sheriff Hector Zertuche, the environmental crimes officer for Jim Wells County, who often worked alongside Kocurek. A U.S. Fish and Wildlife officer corroborated another account.

Kocurek said he realized soon after he was hired that the industry held great sway with the commission: Phone calls were made, and violations disappeared.

“It didn’t take long to see what was happening,” he said. “Go through the motions, but don’t really do your job. That’s what everybody wanted.”