Three monumental things have changed since then: Biden replaced Trump, Texas froze over, and the 87th Texas Legislature has been making our problems worse by blocking local, state, and even federal attempts to solve them. But despite the increased sound and fury about Permian oil and gas, our camera didn’t detect reduced oil and gas air pollution. Then and now, I saw huge plumes containing methane — which is 86 times worse for climate than carbon dioxide — and toxic volatile organic compounds like carcinogenic benzene. Until that pollution is reduced, we’re in trouble.

During my visit to the basin last year, Austin’s Representative Vikki Goodwin accompanied us to sites in Pecos, including MDC Texas Operator’s Pickpocket 21, a consistent polluter which the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) has allowed to operate unpermitted; and Colgate Energy’s Lazarus 67 Unit on F St., whose tanks emit toxics very near a Spanish-speaking, low-income neighborhood.

Two months later, Rep. Goodwin filed HB 1494, a bill which aims to decrease the methane gas flaring and venting by imposing a 25 percent tax on the market value of gas that is flared and vented. When operators don’t pipe methane gas to market, they waste it — flaring or venting billions of cubic feet of gas. Currently this wasted gas is not taxed. (Another bill, HB 1377, introduced by Dallas Rep. Jessica González, would impose a tax on this burned off gas at the same rate as standard natural gas production, or 7.5 percent of market value. Both bills are currently with the House Ways and Means Committee.)

Unfortunately, our inspections then and now suggest that Pickpocket 21 and Lazarus 67 are the norm. That’s why the oil and gas drilling in the Permian is the one of the nation’s largest sources of methane pollution.

President Biden has committed to reducing oil and gas’s climate pollution, but hasn’t yet implemented the policies to do so. His highest profile action to date, a pause (not ban) on new oil and gas leases on federally managed public land (of which Texas has little), hasn’t helped public health or the climate because it hasn’t reduced oil and gas production. That’s because it doesn’t block extraction on existing federal leases — and industry is sitting on a huge unused lease stockpile.

The best hope for concrete action is Biden’s promise to establish federal safeguards to cut methane pollution from the oil and gas industry. But even if Biden implements rules that are as strong as allowed under the Clean Air Act — cutting the country’s methane emissions from oil and gas production by 65 percent by 2025 — they won’t be finalized until 2022. In the meantime, the president could declare a national climate emergency that would give him power to reinstate the crude oil export ban which would reduce Permian production.

Until then, the status quo is pollution. Halliburton fracking trucks continue to rumble through streets, drilling towers still pierce the sky, flaring fireballs continue to blot out the stars.

At the F Street barrio in Pecos, Colgate Energy’s fracking has finished, leaving behind wellheads a few yards from homes where kids play. Climate-changing methane and associated toxics permeate the area. Scanning the landscape from I-20, there was not a second where I couldn’t see at least one site flaring.

Under practically nonexistent TCEQ and Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC) oversight, many of these flares were malfunctioning, emitting black carbon whose climate impact is 460-1,500 times stronger than carbon dioxide. Many flares were unlit and venting, illegally dumping methane into the atmosphere (e.g. Callon Energy’s TX Richmond 39; MDC Texas’ Runaway Ghost 23). Storage tanks pollute as well (i.e. Callon Energy’s Dorothy Unit 38). Even sites with Vapor Recovery Units (VRU’s) — a pollution reduction technology touted by many — continue to pollute.

As organizer Ricardo Levins Morales suggests in “The Enemy Advertises Their Weak Points,” one can figure out an opponents’ vulnerabilities “by what parts of themselves they try to protect and where they allocate their resources.”

How the oil and gas industry reacted to the Texas freeze is a good example of this. Frozen facilities dumped enormous amounts of methane and toxic volatiles into the air and deprived power plants of fuel needed to generate electricity. Subsequently, industry’s legislative minions introduced a flurry of bills including HB 17 — which prevents municipalities from using climate impacts when deciding between fossil fuels and renewables — and SB 13 — which prevents state entities from divesting from fossil fuels. It is clear that the industry is desperate to keep fossil fuels demand afloat amid public outcry.

Another bill, HB 1683, introduced by Texas Representative Brooks Landraff’s on May 11, is particularly revealing. This bill would prevent state agencies from assisting federal oil and gas oversight. If the Biden administration follows through on its oil and gas climate promises, bills like Landraff’s signal the Texas state government will fight it tooth and nail.

Landraff is no outlier. Oil and gas pollution is the norm in this state. Texas regulators protect industry ahead of the public. Even if federal oil and gas climate rules come into effect as scheduled, the sure way to change the Permian status quo and protect our climate and our health is to end all new oil and gas permitting everywhere. That will take more than just a president, it will take a movement.

I’m here to tell you, that movement is on the way.