By wading into energy policy, did Texas GOP chair break ethics law?
Tom Mechler strolled across the lobby of the William B. Travis State Office Building on a recent morning and took an elevator to the 12th floor. The chairman of the Texas Republican Party was about 20 minutes early for an unusual meeting with Texas Railroad Commissioner Ryan Sitton.
The party chairman had not traveled from Amarillo to talk politics. He was there as an oil and gas producer and consultant, representing a group of fellow Panhandle producers who claimed the local pipeline company was unfairly cutting payments to producers for their natural gas.
In a letter to the state's three railroad commissioners three months earlier, Mechler had asked that they "actively engage senior corporate management" at Denver-based DCP Midstream. The pipeline company had a monopoly on transporting gas across the Panhandle, Mechler told the Republican commissioners, and he needed the state's help to prevent DCP from squeezing small-time producers already reeling due to dropping oil and gas prices.
After filing a number of informal complaints and going through mediation for two of his clients — but not getting any resolution — Mechler got an audience with Sitton, who agreed to act as a solo mediator on such a dispute for the first time in his two-year tenure. The March 2 meeting with Mechler, a handful of Panhandle producers, and pipeline company representatives stretched into the afternoon, according to those who attended.
Read more: https://www.texastribune.org/2017/03/21/mechler-and-lobbying-questions/