Earlier this year, Oilfield Witness’s Jack McDonald, published research research with the University of Chicago showing that Texas regulators are failing to regulate oil and gas industry emissions with severe consequences. Using public regulator data collected with Oilfield Witness, the research focuses on natural gas flaring, the controversial practice of deliberately burning natural gas without using it. Jack’s research finds that Texas regulators have rejected less than 1% of flaring permits, frequently granting permits for applications that are incomplete, incoherent or directly contravene stated policy. It also finds that every flaring permit rejected was rejected after the flaring had already occurred, so no permit rejections actually curtailed flaring. The findings also indicate that regulators are subsidizing otherwise uneconomical new wells by exempting them from flaring regulations. The findings make a strong case that Texas cannot be trusted to enforce environmental regulations anymore than oil and gas companies can be trusted to follow them. The research is now being covered in ProPublica, Inside Climate News and the Texas Tribune. For those interested, in the full analysis detailing all of the data and how it was collected the complete paper is included here: