Some Texas Dems refusing oil money
WASHINGTON — Living in the refinery town of Pasadena, Sema Hernandez has seen the oil and gas industry up close.
Hernandez knows how the sight of flares and the sound of sirens put her neighbors on edge. She has studied cancer clusters and disasters such as the Texas City refinery explosion. She has asked doctors about the dangers the chemicals pose to her kids.
She says her ex-husband, who worked as a contractor for many gas and oil outfits in the Houston area, told her of the shortcuts the companies take. And through him, she’s seen the jobs in the industry disappear, just as fast as they came.
“That’s the one thing about fossil fuel jobs,” said Hernandez, a progressive Democrat running for the second time for U.S. Senate. “They’re not permanent jobs. They are temporary jobs.”
Hernandez, who brought in roughly a quarter of the vote in her 2018
primary run against former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke of El Paso, is one of at least three Democrats in the primary election who have sworn off taking money from the industry, unafraid of the message it might send to voters working in those jobs — hundreds of thousands in Houston alone.
They argue that Texas, the nation’s top producer of wind energy, can lead the nation in transitioning to all forms of clean energy as well, creating plenty of jobs in the process. And they say it’s a vitally important move in the face of a climate crisis, as evidenced by repeated massive floods hammering Houston in recent years.
It’s a new approach for Democrats in the state where oil and gas has long reigned supreme. Even O’Rourke accepted hundreds of thousands in donations from the industry in his 2018 Senate run — bringing in the second-most in donations from the industry of any Senate candidate that year, behind only his rival, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Other Democrats in the Senate race have already accepted thousands from the industry, which they say will be a key partner in the eventual transition to clean energy.
But this talk of phasing out fossil fuels will cost them in Texas, one veteran Republican strategist says.
“It’s the third rail of politics in Texas,” said Jeff Roe, who ran Cruz’s 2018 campaign and said attacks on O’Rourke’s record on energy were crucial to Cruz’s victory. “It makes everything you want to say about them true — job killing, taxes, big government. It makes it all true when you mess with the economic engine in the state.”
Whichever Democrat emerges next spring will face a longtime darling of the industry in Republican Sen. John Cornyn, who has already accepted more than $350,000 in donations from the oil and gas sector in his re-election bid — the most of any 2020 Senate candidate, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
“If you’re willing to take on John Cornyn, then you have to be willing to take on his donors,” Hernandez said. “We are not afraid of the industry.”
In the Senate, Cornyn has pushed legislation to help the industry. Most recently, he was instrumental in helping pass the GOP’s massive tax cuts bill in 2017, which was a boon for oil and gas corporations. Cornyn added to that bill a measure specifically preserving a tax break that benefits pipeline companies.
Cornyn, however, has also said climate change is a problem and is pushing legislation aimed at curbing greenhouse gas emissions.
“Sen. Cornyn is proud to fight every day for the hardworking Texans who are the backbone of our energy industry,” Cornyn’s campaign manager, John Jackson, said. “The fact that our opponents refuse to stand up for these folks shows just how out of touch with Texas they’ve become.”
Others sign on
Swearing off oil money is the latest sign of the emergence of a new brand of Democrats in the state, who hope to energize voters — especially younger voters — by taking unabashedly progressive positions. Hernandez and Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, also a Senate hopeful, have signed a pledge to reject any donations from oil and gas executives.
Former Air Force pilot MJ Hegar, another Democrat vying to challenge Cornyn, says she has likewise sworn off such donations, though she hasn’t signed that specific pledge, which, like the Green New Deal, has become something of a marker of where candidates stand on issues of energy and climate change.
Several other congressional candidates have signed it, too, including Jessica Cisneros, a Laredo immigration attorney challenging longtime U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar in the Democratic primary. Some Texas House candidates have also signed the pledge, as has Julián Castro, the former San Antonio mayor running for president.
Under pressure, O’Rourke signed the pledge during his presidential run, but he refused to do so on the campaign trail in 2018, and his campaign took more than half a million from the oil and gas industry, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
“It may work a lot of places, but not here,” Roe said.
Cruz in 2018 accused O’Rourke of wanting to boost gas taxes, including supporting a $10 tax on each barrel of oil — an attack PolitiFact
later deemed “mostly false,” but one that Roe said he believes helped clinch Cruz’s victory.
The Democrats swearing off fossil fuel money are competing in a crowded Senate race. Polling suggests few Texans yet know who they are.
Hegar, who led the field in a University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll released this month with 12 percent, said she’s sworn off any money with “strings attached.”
“I do not think elected officials should take money from corporations that want those officials to legislate in a way that impacts their profits,” she said. “That’s my bottom line.”
Hernandez was second in that poll at 6 percent. The poll had a margin of error of 4 percentage points.
Tzintzún Ramirez, meanwhile, stressed that Texas could be creating jobs in clean energy fields as well, pointing to U.S. Department of Labor statistics that show jobs in solar and wind energy are the fastest growing occupations in
the country. She led the pack in a UT-Tyler poll released earlier this month with 9 percent.
“I think the oil and gas industry already has a very large voice in our democratic process, and I want people to know that I’m acting in the best interest of Texans and in the best interest of our economy, our future and our environment,” she said.
Hometown industry
Others in the race say it’s a mistake to go so far. Virtually all agree the state needs to work to shift toward a clean energy economy — and they all argue Texas is in a unique position to lead that effort — but several Democrats say the oil and gas industry needs to be part of that effort.
Two Houston-area candidates — City Council member Amanda Edwards and former U.S. Rep. Chris Bell — have taken thousands from the oil and gas industry already, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Edwards has accepted more than $8,300, and Bell has taken in at least $2,500.
Edwards said accepting donations from those in the energy industry isn’t necessarily indicative “of your stance on energy and climate change.”
“It’s really just being in a place where you live in the energy capital of the world,” she said.
“To say you’re just going to eradicate fossil fuels and roll over the oil and gas industry is not realistic and it would devastate our economy,” Bell said. “Let’s work together to address the problem.”
Bell even counts among his advisers a longtime oil and gas executive, William Maloney, currently on the board of directors of Trident Energy and a retired executive vice president of Statoil. He’s exactly the type of donor others in the race have sworn off.
Maloney said much of the oil and gas industry has awakened to the fact that it needs to begin transitioning toward clean energy. He pointed to the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative, which includes many of the biggest oil companies — including Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Occidental Petroleum, BP and Royal Dutch Shell — and claims to have invested more than $1 billion in technologies to cut carbon emissions.
“For me, money talks. These companies are putting their money where their mouth is,” Maloney said. “You might get some short-term gain by saying you don’t want money from people like me, but is it really the answer in the long term? I would say it’s not.”