Texas official wants gas on same footing as renewables
A member of a Texas energy regulatory body said August 5 that tax subsidies for natural gas could be a boon for energy security.
Jim Wright, a member of the Texas Railroad Commission, called for natural gas to be put on parity with renewable energy when it comes to incentives. The commission, the oldest regulatory agency in the state, is the entity that regulates the oil and gas industry in Texas.
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An Arctic blast in mid-February brought extreme cold to large parts of the continental US. Texas saw temperatures below freezing, a rare event for the US south. Henry Hub, the US gas price benchmark, spiked into the double-digits as a result of the surge in demand and supply-side outages triggered by the deep freeze.
Industry players and state officials alike have sought to avoid a repeat of the event that left everything from wellheads to wind turbines frozen.
Wright suggested that regulators, from the state level on up, should consider “levelling the playing field” between natural gas and renewables.
“Equalising these incentives could assist with necessary infrastructure investments that guarantee ample supplies of this important Texas resource are available whenever they are needed,” he said.
Texas is home to some of the more prolific shale basins in the country. The US Energy Information Administration estimated that Texas accounted for 43% of the nation’s total crude oil and 26% of natural gas production last year.