For the first time ever I'm excited about the Texas Railroad Commission race.

Don't be fooled, the Texas Railroad Commission hasn't regulated railroads since 1905. Instead it regulates energy-related natural resources. Oil and gas, coal, hydroelectric, nuclear, wind, pipelines, you name it. But of course the Texas darling is oil and gas.

No Dem has won a seat on the TRRC in at least 50 years. Most years the party runs someone who I take to be of middling interest. None has had passion for the work. Ambition maybe, but not passion.

Not this year! Bill Burch is an interesting guy. He's a longtime oil and gas guy, has worked in 65 different countries and all over the US. He's put out oil rig fires and done a variety of jobs. He's passionately concerned about ensuring the well-being of Texas communities, and ensuring that the many abandoned wells that were once capped but now have rusted through and are starting to spew again are dealt with in ways to minimize and clean up the pollution. He's deeply knowledgeable, articulate, personable.

That seat's been held for ten years by Christi Craddick, daughter of the former very conservative House Speaker and now-Senator Tom Craddick. No, she had no credentials for the job.

The TRRC has been mismanaging the industries it regulates for years. Rubber-stamping application permits. Not requiring companies, especially the smaller ones, to ensure that cleanup costs will be paid by purchase of an appropriate insurance policy or bond. Huge numbers of wells from the early days of drilling were never properly documented and finding who is responsible for paying for cleanup costs is hard. Burch is convinced the TRRC is going to help shift the costs to taxpayers – likely a trillion dollars or more.

If elected, he'd be the first Dem elected to a statewide position in for more than two decades. He is NOT running on an end the use of oil and gas, believing our energy needs for a long time to come will require it, but he does believe in working to decarbonize residential and other sectors of the Texas economy. Which means increasing the reliance on renewable energy. Here's a short clip.

To me, that's pragmatic. No one who isn't for oil and gas could possibly be elected to the TRRC in Texas, no matter how hard we try. But managing it well to minimize the harm has never been done before. That would be huge.

Burch does have a primary opponent, Kathrine Culbert. She's an engineer and an oil and gas consultant. Plus I have it on good authority (the office manager of a county party with access to secure voting records) that she has voted Republican in the past.