Dressed in a dark plaid button down and jeans with a rodeo belt buckle, Schuyler Wight arrived in Austin once again to ride herd on the Railroad Commission of Texas, the agency that regulates the state’s vast oil and gas industry.
“God didn’t build the Garden of Eden out there in West Texas, but we’ve been making a living off of it for six generations now,” the rancher told the commissioners in January, his thinning white hair showing the imprint of his hatband. “I know you think it’s just a wasteland, but we live out there. We have to work out there. We have to drink that water. Our cattle have to drink that water. There’s a lot of pollution out there, and I’ve been asking you a lot of questions, and you’re not giving me any answers.”
