Legislature sees technology changing energy business

"When I graduated high school, energy was a small six-letter word," State Rep.

Rick Hardcastle told members of the Permian Basin Petroleum Association Thursday.

Since being named chairman of the Texas House Energy Resources Committee last year, the Vernon Republican continued, "The further I get into this, I've learned energy is a huge word that takes two dictionaries."

A rancher, Hardcastle said he is more familiar with agriculture and agricultural chemicals than oil and gas issues but is learning about an industry he acknowledged currently is enjoying "exciting times."

"One lesson I've learned is we are one technology jump away from changing the face of the business in the state. Whether it's power generation and clean coal or CO2 sequestration, no matter what part of the energy industry, we're one technology jump away. I live next to the Barnett Shale, and the Barnett would not be available to us today if we'd taken one technology jump back. We're one technology jump from moving forward and I hope to help promote that technology and help us move forward," he said.

As committee chairman, Hardcastle told the gathering, he is also chairman of the Oilfield Clean-up Committee and part of the Energy Council, which is comprised of representative of the 11 oil and gas-producing states and five Canadian provinces. He was recently in Washington, D.C. with others on the council, he said with the traditional message of "telling Congress to stay out of our way."

While in Washington, he said, he and the others told legislators that if bills they are proposing -- and Hardcastle said there are three or four, not counting bills regarding CO2 or cap and trade -- set targets, "that's OK, but don't tell the states how to regulate the emissions or who will regulate. We were not well-received. Global warming is a hot commodity there right now, and they're more concerned about looking good than doing what works good. Economics is the furthest thing from their mind."

In Texas, Hardcastle said, "right now we're in a friendly energy environment in the Texas Legislature. Our challenge as legislators, as paid professionals, as operators, is we need to make all the headway we can in the next two to six years. You have Warren Chisum in the House, he's in the oil business. You have Tom Craddick as speaker. We have to figure out every major problem that will try to sneak up on us with odd-duck bills and figure out how those could cripple the oil and gas industry."

Between now and the next session of the Legislature in January, Hardcastle predicted he and his committee will enact several energy-related changes "or look at them before the next session." He said he expected topics to include renaming the Railroad Commission and "two or three others, like adjustments to our bonding regulations."