AUSTIN — Democratic gubernatorial nominee Bill White earned more than $2.6 million serving on the board of a gas well servicing company that now is part of a congressional investigation into possible groundwater contamination.
White, who made cleaning Houston’s polluted air a hallmark of his tenure as Houston’s mayor, has been on the board of BJ Services Co. since 2003, the year he was elected, earning more than $627,000.
White also received almost $830,000 in stock and another $245,000 in stock options. He will receive an additional $180,000 in stock and a retirement payout of $783,000 if the firm’s merger with Baker Hughes is approved by shareholders Friday.
The issue of White’s involvement with BJ Services came to light after he refused a Houston Chronicle request for his tax returns during his tenure as mayor. The relationship was disclosed in personal financial disclosure statements. White’s campaign provided details on his BJ Services earnings Tuesday.
The U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee is investigating Houston-based BJ Services Co., Halliburton and several other oil field service companies to see if the gas extraction method known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is a hazard to groundwater drinking supplies in Texas, Arkansas, Colorado, New York, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania.
On Earthstage’s Fracking Resource Guide, discussion of Texas and gas frilling would be incomplete without hearing from Sharon Wilson.
Sharon Wilson is considered a leading citizen expert on the impacts of shale oil and gas extraction. She is the go-to person whether it’s top EPA officials from D.C., national and international news networks, or residents facing the shock of eminent domain and the devastating environmental effects of natural gas development in their backyards.
Can this be real? I have a flyer for Earth Day Texas 2015 and it lists the following speakers:
Dan Patrick, Texas Lt. Governor-Elect – Patrick characterized the “debate” over climate change as being more or less tied between those who believe in man-made climate change and those who don’t (instead of the more than 97% of scientists who believe it is happening). “But you know, if you want a tiebreaker,” he said, “if Al Gore thinks it’s right, you know it’s wrong.”SOURCE
Ken Paxton, Texas Attorney General-Elect – This candidate has not given us their official stance yet but voting records from OpenCongress.org show that politicians vote along party lines over 93% of the time. Based on this candidate’s party affiliation, they would most likely choose this answer based on the following stance from the Republican Party: “Fewer Republicans today say the effects of global warming have already begun (47% 2006, 35% today) or that global warming poses a serious threat to California (57% 2006, 48% today).” SOURCE
Joe Quinlan, Managing Director and Chief Market Strategist, U.S. Trust – Joseph Quinlan said that TTIP “is the deepest more ambitious, trade agreement that we have ever seen”. SOURCE
Ryan Sitton, Texas Railroad Commissioner – Texas has the know-how to regulate its oil and gas industry, he says, and he plans to push back against the Environmental Protection Agency, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and other federal regulators that, he says, might intrude on the state’s production. SOURCE
Dallas City Leaders – I don’t know who this might be but, when I shared the flyer with a friend, here is the suggestion I received: Steve Everley will be in hog heaven if that’s the lineup. They should invite Ross Perot and Hunt Oil, put a big rig up in the center of the festivities, and have The FrackMaster on top of it drinking FRAC water.
With Dallas now in ‘SEVERE’ non-attainment for ozone, we need an Earth Day Texas 2015 that is truly about the Earth and clean air and a healthy environment.
The Dallas-Fort Worth area is now in “severe” nonattainment with the 1997 national ozone standard, U.S. EPA said in a proposal today. E&E News Amanda Peterka, Published: Tuesday, February 10, 2015
I think this “Screw Earth Day Texas” must be a cruel joke. I hope the real Earth Day will soon appear because this joke is killing me.
Update: I changed it to Earth Day Texas 2015 because that’s the name. It’s just held in Dallas.
Denton’s ban on fracking for natural-gas drilling, and industry-backed legislative efforts to rescind such local controls, will be subjects of a live debate between a top Republican elected state official and a fracking opponent.
Meanwhile, former Houston Mayor Bill White, who became known as an environmental crusader — but also became one of many Democrats who lost elections to former GOP Gov. Rick Perry — will talk about Texas’ environmental approach. With him onstage will be the head of one of the state’s most powerful lobbies, the heavily Republican-leaning Texas Association of Business. One speaker doing a solo gig is Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a Republican tea-party favorite who, at a 2014 campaign appearance, said he would leave worrying about climate change “in the hands of God.
He’s handled our climate pretty well for a long time.” But another speaker is Texas Christian University environmental scientist Michael Slattery, whose talk is entitled “The Climate Denial Train: Why Is It So Strong?” More on the science and impacts of climate change will come from Texas A&M agricultural economist and climate researcher Bruce McCarl, recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.
And Karenna Gore, director of the Center for Earth Ethics at Union Theological Seminary and oldest daughter of former Vice President Al Gore, will speak about moral aspects of climate change. Crow said Earth Day Texas has maintained its focus on encouraging business to become more environmentally responsible and recognizing those with achievements to share. But he said the festival, now in its fifth year, will also be paying increased attention to whether policies, especially in Texas, are helping or hurting the environment.
Some of the speaker invitees, including Patrick and Texas Railroad Commissioner Ryan Sitton, have raised some complaints from environmental advocates. The commission regulates oil and gas and has defended hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, from public criticism. Sitton will debate Adam Briggle, a leader of the successful campaign for a referendum banning fracking in Denton. The Denton ban faces challenges in court and in the Legislature.
North Texas blogger Sharon Wilson, organizer for the nonprofit group Earthworks’ Oil and Gas Accountability Project, said Texas officials don’t need Earth Day Texas’ help to spread their views. “It is positively Orwellian to give climate deniers a platform on the very day that is dedicated to protecting the Earth,” Wilson said. “These politicians are controlling the debate in Texas. They have a platform everyday and should not be given one on Earth Day.” Crow, however, said inviting politicians to speak at Earth Day Texas will expose them, perhaps for the first time, to environmental science and education. “We want to rub off on them.”
Dallas News admin. Earth Day Texas has sharper edges this year. 24 Apr 2015. Dallas News.
This morning 25 environmental and community groups called on the EPA and a congressional committee to investigate whether two companies violated the Safe Drinking Water Act by using diesel as a fluid in their natural gas “fracking” activities.
Gubernatorial candidate Bill White has collected more than $2.6 million serving on the board of one of the companies, Houston-based BJ Services, and has defended the controversial technique of hydraulic fracturing as “essential to an affordable supply of natural gas.” The Perry campaign, naturally, has pounced on the issue to discredit White’s environmental bona fides.
Concern that fracking operations are contaminating groundwater have soared, including here in Texas where the technique has opened up huge plays in the Barnett Shale and the Eagle Ford Shale.
In February, the House Energy and Commerce Committee released information showing that BJ Services and Halliburton had injected diesel underground in at least 15 states between 2005 and 2007. BJ Services admitted to the committee that it had pumped 1,700 gallons of diesel into drinking water supplies s in Arkansas and Oklahoma in violation of a non-binding agreement with EPA.
…White has served on the board of directors for the North American Electric Reliability Council. He was chairman for both the World Trade Division and the Environmental Advisory Committee, and served on the executive committee, for the Greater Houston Partnership. He has also served on the board of directors for the Houston Quality of Life Coalition. He is an official sponsor and supporter of the Amazing Faiths Project of Houston.[13]
…In 2014, Bill White published (with the Manhattan publishing house PublicAffairs) America’s Fiscal Constitution: Its Triumph and Collapse,[75] on the subject of the growing national-debt crisis.
The volume received generally positive and respectful national attention. In The Wall Street Journal, reviewer Edward Chancellor noted that “Mr. White suggests a return to the austere principles that governed the issuance of public debt from the birth of the Republic until recently… To this end, America’s Fiscal Constitution serves a noble purpose.”[76] Bethany McLean wrote, in a review for the Sunday New York Times: “This book will be music to the ears of budget hawks everywhere… In his measured way, [White] is critical of both George W. Bush and Barack Obama… This is an important book, but not an easy one.”[77]
Shortly after the book’s release, White (then working as a senior adviser at the global financial advisory and asset management firm Lazard) told Maggie Galehouse of the Houston Chronicle, “I have no itch to run for public office… I like my life exactly as it is.”[78]
…White won the Democratic primary for governor on March 2, 2010 and faced off against Perry, the Republican nominee. Polls showed Perry with a comfortable lead.[72] However White did show strong support among Independent voters, young voters under 35, and minorities.
In an interview with The Texas Observer on June 11, 2010, White discussed how he would combine his experiences in both business and politics to provide Texas with better leadership.[73]
White was defeated by incumbent Republican Governor Rick Perry in the general election on November 2, 2010. Shortly after this loss, White declined to run for the United States Senate seat vacated by Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison in the 2012 U.S. Senate election.[74]
The former Houston mayor hopes to bring his business acumen to the governor’s mansion. Is that a good thing?
White has had quite a few successes in business. He’s been a serious player in the energy industry, particularly in natural gas and oil extraction. For six years before he became mayor, White headed the Wedge Group, a holding company that during his tenure nurtured successful ventures in energy and real estate. There have been failures as well: The energy company he launched in 1996 has sputtered in its attempts to pump oil from the Caspian Sea, costing investors millions.
Then there are business dealings that raise ethical questions. White has forged a close relationship with a drilling company named BJ Services, including serving on its board while he was mayor. He pocketed $2.6 million from BJ Services in the past seven years. Elected officials usually don’t earn that kind of money in the private sector while still in government. He’s also received campaign contributions from the company’s president. Meanwhile, critics point out, White’s position on natural gas drilling in North Texas—in which BJ Services is heavily involved—would greatly benefit the company if he becomes governor.
His ties to the drilling outfit surprised some of White’s liberal supporters, but it shows what an interesting hybrid he is: An oil and gas man who was a member of the Greater Houston Partnership—an industry group that’s the very epicenter of big business in Texas—but also a politician whose record as Houston mayor was largely progressive. He worked to clean the air in Houston’s pollution-choked East End, to build affordable housing and, most famously, to house hundreds of thousands who fled Hurricane Katrina. He’s a progressive Democrat who won’t hesitate to crack down on big-business leaders when he feels they’re acting in bad faith, but who prefers to work cooperatively with them. After all, he understands where they’re coming from.
