The Texas Railroad Commission used to regulate the railroads.
It also set trucking regulations.
It did all that while also regulating the state’s mammoth oil and natural gas industry.
That was then. In the here and now, though, the three-member Railroad Commission only regulates oil and natural gas. Rail and trucking regulation has been handed off.
This now begs the question I’ve been asking for more than 30 years observing and covering Texas politics and government: Why is this agency still called the “Texas Railroad Commission”?
The Railroad Commission came under scrutiny this week in Austin. The state’s Sunset Advisory Commission is examining the way the RRC does its job and whether it’s worth remaining active.
It’s fascinating in the extreme to me, though, that lawmakers would rush to defend the name of the organization that no longer has a thing to do with making sure the trains run on time.
They are clinging to that thing called “tradition.”
I keep coming back to the question: Why? Why keep the vise grip on something that makes no sense?
A former railroad commissioner, Elizabeth Ames, once pitched the notion of changing the name of the panel to something that reflects more accurately its actual duties. If memory serves, she rather liked the idea of calling it the Texas Energy Commission. The idea, which never really was argued seriously in the Legislature, went nowhere.
Ames is no longer in office. Those who now comprise the Railroad Commission seem wedded to the tradition that hides its duties behind this silly misnomer.
I could pose the following statement to 100 people at random in Amarillo: Please tell me the duties of the Texas Railroad Commission. I would bet real American money that most of them would include “rail regulation” in their response.
C’mon, folks. Change the name!