Luke Warford is trying to speak your language.
The Democratic candidate for Texas Railroad Commission released a Spanish language ad Thursday reiterating the primary message of his campaign — that the current board members of the railroad commission did not do enough to protect Texans during the winter storm of 2021.
Warford is running against Wayne Christian, the chairman of the railroad commission, who he accuses of serving his donors in the oil and gas industry.
In the ad, Warford refers to oil and gas executives as “rateros” or thieves who received billions of dollars while Texans saw their electric bills go up.
“No matter where you live across this state … people had a terrible experience during last February’s winter storm and now millions of Texans are paying higher utility bills,” Warford said in an interview Thursday.
Warford, a former staffer with the Texas Democratic Party, said that was a message he believed resonated with voters across the state regardless of their background or what language they speak.
He accused Republicans and Christian of playing politics and using the winter storm as an opportunity to enrich donors.
In response to the blackout caused by the freeze, Winter Storm Uri, state legislators passed legislation to bail out energy companies that will likely lead to higher utility bills for residents for years.
The Texas Railroad Commission, which has not regulated railroads since 2005, regulates the oil and natural gas industry in the state.
Christian, the current chairman, is one of three board members elected to the commission.
Christian argued that Winter Storm Uri showed that wind and solar energy were unreliable in an interview earlier this week with The Texan, a right-leaning online news outlet.
However, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued a report stating outages were caused by generating units that were unprepared for cold weather and the inability of natural gas supply to meet demand.
Christian added that most of the requirements to “weatherize” power generators and transmission lines imposed by Senate Bill 3 were completed within the first six months.
“But what you’re not going to fix is just when folks get froze in and you have to shut down operations. That happens,” Christian told The Texan.
A Republican and former state representative, Christian was first elected to the commission in 2016 and is currently running for his second term.
He has faced allegations of corruption after he voted to approve a permit for an oil field waste dump facility against the recommendation of railroad commission staff. Days after his approval, he received a $100,000 campaign contribution from the company that obtained the permit.
Christian told Texas Monthly in February that the commission’s general counsel advised him to approve the permit as long as the waste dump facility used a clay liner, which he said it did.
“My opponents are mudslinging out of desperation because I am the only candidate in this race with the endorsements, campaign infrastructure, and resources necessary to win this race,” Christian stated via an email to Texas Monthly.
Warford said those types of conflicts of interest were the fundamental problem with the decisions made by the railroad commission which he says led to higher utility bills.
It’s that message that the new ad is getting out, though in a comical way. The ad features Warford and a little girl at a birthday party, both criticizing Christian and oil and gas executives in Spanish. It ends comedically, with the little girl’s parents wondering who Warford is.
Warford said many Texans don’t know what the railroad commission is or what it does.
“We needed to make our communications stand out,” Warford said of the ad.
If elected, he said he wanted Texas to retain leadership in energy production but wanted to focus on making oil and gas cleaner and safer while also holding bad actors accountable.
“I want us to maintain that energy leadership for decades to come,” he said.
