Fort Worth oil leader heads to Capitol Hill to decry Biden administration

When Cye Cooper Wagner looks at the Environmental Protection Agency’s new regulations on oil and gas operations, she can’t help but think of the consequences for small producers like her family business, Cooper Oil & Gas Inc. Most of the Fort Worth-based company’s profits come from rural North Texas wells that produce about five barrels of oil each day. 

The financial cost of hiring new staff and installing new equipment to meet the federal government’s methane emissions caps will cause small businesses to close up shop, Wagner told members of the U.S. House of Representatives this week. 

“I’m not sure why there’s a target on my back,” Wagner said during the Feb. 14 House Committee on Small Business hearing. “I’m not quite sure they want to wipe us out, but it definitely feels that way.” 

Wagner, who recently completed a two-year term as the first woman to chair the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers, was among four panelists invited to testify on how a wave of EPA regulations will affect small businesses and American industry. Representatives of the manufacturing and medical device industries were also on hand to answer questions posed by the committee, chaired by U.S. Rep. Roger Williams (R-Willow Park). 

Congressman Roger Williams (R-Willow Park) speaks during the Real Estate Forecast, hosted by the Real Estate Council of Greater Fort Worth in January 2023. (Cristian ArguetaSoto | Fort Worth Report)

Most small businesses do not have a team of lawyers or a compliance department to figure out what needs to be done to meet new mandates, Williams said. His committee has sent five oversight letters to the EPA, sounding the alarm on potential negative impacts of regulations, but Williams said many of their responses have been untimely and insufficiently detailed. 

“This agency takes a heavy-handed government approach to force change rather than letting free markets and businesses make their own decisions,” Williams said. “Not only do they harm American businesses, but they also put us at a competitive disadvantage with our adversaries like China.”

The EPA offered many chances for the public, industry and environmental advocates to make their voices heard on regulatory changes, including a panel of small business representatives convened in 2021, EPA spokesperson Shayla Powell said. 

Staff received over a million comments on new methane regulations and spent hundreds of hours incorporating that feedback into the final rule, she said. Some of those comments resulted in a change allowing oil and gas operators to conduct inspections for…