Fossil fuels and utilities

My dad was an old oil and gas "lion." He learned the business walking a gas pipeline when he was 19. He slowly but surely moved up, first with Houston Pipeline Company, then with its parent company, Houston Natural Gas.

His favorite-ever project: Supervising the construction of HPL/HNG's West Texas pipeline. Ranchers and farmers loved him. He ensured their land was left better than he'd found it, with water wells, fencing, and sodding of native grasses for their cattle. We would drive through West Texas and he would point with pride to the green belts that marked "his" pipeline.

But when the city of Houston wanted to drill for oil in Memorial Park, he was dead set against it. He did not trust Big Oil to treat the environment right. He knew their track record, and it was not good. He and many of his HPL/HNG colleagues fought that proposal tooth and nail and defeated it.

The ascension of Ken Lay to leadership of HNG, which you better know as Enron, grieved him and other "old lions" deeply. They saw a man destroy everything they had built, aided by deregulation of an industry they knew needed regulation.

I'm glad he's not alive to witness the attempted deregulation on steroids of the current regime.

Note: Fossil fuels = Natural gas, crude oil, coal. Utilities include pipelines and nuclear.

Proposed legislation:

October 10, 2025 – December 3, 2025:
September 26, 2025 - October 9, 2025:
August 16, 2025 -
July 17, 2025 – August 15, 2025: Hydropower licensing; anti-DEI regs for petroleum industry; coal mining; deregulation of petroleum industry; LNG bunkering; reducing risk assessments (deregulation) for petroleum industry; coal ash.

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