The Texan Podcast - Interview: Railroad Commission Chairman Wayne Christian Talks About Texas' Oil and Gas Industry

Episode Date: October 17, 2022

Want to support reporting on Texas politics that doesn’t include the spin? Subscribe at https://thetexan.news/subscribe/ This week, senior reporter Brad Johnson interviewed Railroad Commission Chairman Wayne Christian. They discussed the Texas oil and gas industry, the Biden administration’s regulation of the industry, and his race for a second term on the commission.Enjoy this content? Be sure to subscribe for similar interviews and The Texan’s Weekly Roundup — a podcast released every Friday that brings you the latest news in Texas politics.

Hi, everyone. Brad Johnson, senior reporter at The Texan here. Today, I sat down with Railroad Commission Chairman Wayne Christian to discuss the Texas oil and gas industry, the Biden administration's regulation of the industry, and his race for a second term on the commission. Thanks for listening or watching and consider subscribing at thetexan.news. Hello, everybody. Chairman, welcome. Thanks for coming to the Texan podcast. Glad to have you. Honor to be here. Chairman Wayne Christian, chairman of the Texas Railroad Commission. And as is often said with this, no, it doesn't have anything to do with railroads. That's right. It's actually amazing. And most citizens in Texas, sadly, that's one of the hindrances. And there's a constant battle, should we rename the Railroad Commission? Of course, it's up to the legislature, not the commission. And at times, I think we should.

At times, I understand. And really, around the world, Forbes magazine had an article a couple years ago when I first took office, and it said, the Railroad Commission of Texas, beyond doubt, is the most respected regulatory agency for oil and gas on planet Earth. And so with that type of international reputation, the folks outside of Texas understand what the Railroad Commission of Texas is probably better than the people inside the state. But since it's one third of the budget, one out of every 10 jobs, all the Rain Day Fund, all the public school funds, all the higher education fund, and all the 26 billion Glenn Haggers bragging about the overage we have, all that's oil and gas. And that's what I think people of Texas need to be more concerned when it comes to the Railroad Commission and what it represents to the state of Texas.

It doesn't seem like there's much appetite in the legislature for moving a bill to change the name. It seems like they have bigger things to worry about. But it is, especially every every election it does come up because most voters have no idea what it does so if you could just you know give us a brief overview of what the commission's day-to-day role is in in texas well basically we're responsible for everything the good lord gives us underneath the earth largely oil gas coal uh we also write uranium lithium the stuff underneath the ground. We're in charge of being the stewards of that for the citizens of Texas, that the right thing is done, that it's handled correctly, environmentally correct, all the different things that people expect. That's our job.

And we're in charge of that from the time it's in the ground until it's taken out of the ground, transported to the refineries or processing facilities or electric generating facilities or whatever they use. And once it goes there, it becomes somebody else's property. So we're basically, we're from the way the good Lord made it to get it out of the ground and get it to the user. That's the Railroad Commission of Texas. If we were a nation, Texas, we would be right now number three in the world for production of oil and gas. That's prolific. You are seeking currently, I believe, your second term on the commission, correct? Correct. Tell us about why you decided to seek the second term.

Because we've never been under threat as much as we are from our current administration. You know, what has made Texas, Texas, as I mentioned, the third of our economy, all that, it's under threat. And right now, since Storm Uri, I think, revealed a lot of problems that we have with just electricity. And understand, since Uri, we were taught that we've put so much money, $62 billion in the last 20 years of federal tax dollars in Texas, wind and solar, and $23 billion of federal tax dollars in Texas, wind and solar, and 23 billion from Texas tax dollars. So that's $90 billion in 20 years we put into wind and solar. The storm URI showed us that they can't provide energy when it's hot or when it's cold.

This summer, we had the potential shortages that we barely passed by. So they can't do it in hot weather, can't do it in cold weather. Yet since Storm Uri, we have increased the amount of unreliable wind and solar in Texas. We have decreased the amount of reliable energy in coal and gas. And we see that trend going to continue through the next at least five, six years as far as ERCOT has mapped out this kind of thing. And it is a wide disparity on the amount at least five, six years as far as ERCOT has mapped out this kind of thing. And it is a wide disparity on the amount, especially solar, that's coming online. And I think maybe a handful of new gas projects or increased gas projects, if that, that's coming online. So as you said, there's a big change there that some officials, yourself included, believe the ship needs to be righted on.

Let me tell you what my fear is, Brad. My fear is $350 billion of our tax dollars that are coming to the states. And Texas will get probably the largest share of that to destroy oil and gas, to fund windmills and solar panels, mostly solar panels. Okay. And so say we get $100 billion, $200 billion of our federal dollars to Texas, which understand this Inflation Reduction Act, which is a joke of a name. The Inflation Reduction Act is $350 billion to expand electric and to increase windmills and solar panels in the states. When that comes to Texas, much like the public school dollars, which politicians, if we have the control or the private industry has control of that money, who's going to say, oh, my

community doesn't want $100 million. We don't want the $200 million. That's going to take a heck of a lot of courage on the part of Texans. But if we don't do something and continue to increase, as we did since URI, the amount of unreliable energy instead of reliable, what we're doing, I think, which is irresponsible, we know that we're increasing the demand for electricity alone. And by the way, the Railroad Commission doesn't regulate electricity. That's PUC and ERCOT. We do natural gas, coal, and oil, the fuel for that.

But if we keep the increased demand, which we're doing that at 1,000 people a day legally in the state of Texas, and that's increasing demand, and yet we're cutting back on reliable supply, I'm sorry. That's headed for a rolling blackout somewhere in our future unless we change direction. And what you're talking about with the federal money coming in, especially is the production tax credit, right? That's a tax credit given to renewable companies. First, it was wind. I believe it got extended to solar, correct? And it's a tax credit given per kilowatt hour produced. And that puts renewable companies at a serious advantage. That's just a part of it. That they extended. I think Kevin Brady was very instrumental back years ago under the Obama administration. For the first time in history, we were able to export oil since Jimmy Carter's time. We were able to export oil and became the energy dominant force, number one exporter and producer of oil and gas on planet Earth because of Kevin Brady, Congressman's negotiation with the Biden administration.

And one of the things they gave away were these credits, these ability for wind, not only has $350 billion tax dollars going to be spent for the purpose of wind and solar and electric plugs and everything else they can do, but they also extended those same things that Brady had limited for a number of years and we thought were running out. They've now been extended by this bill into eternity. Yeah. You mentioned the power grid and Winter Storm URI. we thought were running out, they've now been extended by this bill into eternity. You mentioned the power grid and Winter Storm URI. One of the big things that you guys at the Railroad Commission have oversight over that really caused the situation in 2021 to spiral out of control was the critical infrastructure designation or lack thereof. Basically, a paperwork error that we saw a lot of these, especially natural gas, critical pieces of infrastructure lose power, cut off from power during the institution of rolling

blackouts that then prevented the production of or the supply of natural gas that could then produce electricity. Just kind of this spiral. What have you guys done to fix that? I know that's been a hot topic at the commission. Well, the thing is two different parts. I think there's kind of misrepresentation of what really happened. Like the rest of the story, like what Paul Harvey said.

Actually, natural gas is the part that we're talking about. And part of the lack of production of natural gas, which I think electricity was 50 billion megawatts or whatever, a million megawatts or something to the time, was the shortage we found during that time of URI, that period. So 50 million. Of that, I think it was about 6,700 was from natural gas lack of production. So we were like, I think, it figures out about 6.9% of the shortage during that time was due to natural gas lack of production. So we were like, I think, it figures out about 6.9% of the shortage during that time was due to natural gas. But then the federal administration and some of its side

agencies have looked at that, and our newspapers are saying, oh, natural gas was responsible for the shortage during the area was a major part. Well, it was 7% of that shortage, which is significant. And what have we done since that time? What happened is everybody's got to remember this was the once in a hundred year storm. Nobody saw this coming. And good Lord just sent it to us. And what do you do?

There's going to be problems. And so honestly, what happened is many of the roads in West Texas froze up and the people that were producing the natural gas, the wells, they couldn't get to them and back. Had nothing to do with well, and what we were paying, it was the roads. And people weren't going to call their people and say, risk your lives and get out of here during the freeze. Just like everywhere else in Texas, people were calling and say, stay home, keep your kids at school home during this freeze.

So they did that in the gas business out there and the oil gas and it shut down production during that freeze. So they did that in the gas business out there and the oil gas and it shut down production during that time. Also, what we found is the system itself of ERCOT, PUC, and the Railroad Commission, there were some things like this valve doesn't turn on and literally we just shut off natural gas going to some electric generating facilities. And since that time, simply everybody's learned and we've improved that. So Senate Bill 3 did a lot to demand that these things get fixed. And frankly, I'm proud to say, probably they gave us a full year, year and a half to implement these changes. Most of them were done within the first six months by the companies individually saying,

yeah, we need to fix this and we'll learn from this and that. But what you're not going to fix is just when folks get frozen and you have to shut down operation. That happens. What you're talking about with SB3 was the weatherization or winterization mandates. That was kind of the other big piece of this response. Where does that stand for the oil and gas industry as it pertains to your guys' oversight? Right. Well, where it stands is basically we've had two different committees, one appointed by the Speaker, Lieutenant Governor, and Governor that came out as the Energy Committee that

we're supposed to design. Where does it go? Then the other was the Texas Emergency Response Corps, TURC, and it had a group of, the Railroad Commission was involved, a lot of the electric industry and a lot of the pipes and gas producing industry all came together. And that report has not yet been released. Okay. Okay.

I think there's just general agreement, everybody says. And it was good because what is to be credited in Texas for this is there's a book called about the – that was written by two psychologists about the power of bad. And it's talking about government's got to the point that when you have a problem like this, in most instances now, what happens is rapid legislation by some rep or senator or somebody will get up, politician, I'm passing a bill, this will never happen again, and we're going to do this, that, and the other. Instead, the governor, lieutenant governor, did the smart thing. They did the old method. Let's establish a blue ribbon task force that will have time to look at the problem and digest what's the best answer and come back with recommendations to the Senate and House. That's what we did in Texas with these two different groups.

Now, the argument there had been pretty severe, and I've been involved in it, and there's been some head knocking. But I think we've pretty well come together. And I think Texans can be assured if we had the same problem, the situation wouldn't be as bad as it was. We've resolved a lot of it in that. Within that, those discussions, what has been the biggest point of contention or disagreement that you have to come to an agreement on in these discussions? I think it's money always is. It's the market. Understand we deregulated the electric industry a couple of decades ago in the state of Texas. Used to the electric industry and the

lines and all were regulated. And so we had, I think, the production, the distribution, and the sale of electricity. Well, we deregulated the selling of electricity, okay? But we still regulate the lines and we still regulate the production. So what we had is, since this is a free market capitalist system where the sales end by the electric companies, they want as low a cost as possible. So some of the argument was that these electric companies had contracted for the lowest cost option, which was what they call not secure contracts, not firm contracts. Firm contracts is where I negotiate with you as a pipeline company said, good, bad, ugly, I'm contracting that you 24-7 deliver this much gas to me minimum. That's a firm contract.

Well, they didn't buy that. They were looking for the lowest cost to the consumer they could get out here and sell. So they got the number. Without the guarantee. Without the guarantees. Without the guarantees. Okay. So guess what?

Contracts, free market, not government. Those were free market contracts. And so when the storm came and all of a sudden restrained production of all the products, delivery and increased production, all of a sudden who gets the gas first? The firm contracts. And so some of these big electric generators had the not firm contracts. Well- I think one of those was Brazos, right? I think so. I'm not sure. I'm not looking at it now.

They're the ones that are in bankruptcy right now. Okay. So that's what happened in that particular situation. So that's a free market, not government regulated. Now, does the government come in and start regulating that you've got to have firm contracts to the electrics? Okay, here's the answer. Or do you gas companies have to? You ask what the argument is? The electrics don't want regulated by the government saying you have to have firm contracts.

The gas companies and pipes are saying we shouldn't have to guarantee 24-7 gas to every company equally. And so it's a legitimate argument, right? But it's between free market, governmental. Either way, if you have the electric companies do it, the consumer gets the increased rate, right? If you have the gases and pipes do it, you got the taxpayers, same folks, second burst, pay it. There's no free lunch.

Yeah. And it's not one's good, one's bad. There's two different arguments. Free market don't want the cost. Neither do the regulated companies want to be imposed additional costs. So there's been your overall battle. Yeah, we saw more on these firm contracts. They cost more, right?

Sure. Because to guarantee service, it costs more money. Exactly. We see that playing out just on the power grid side, having more ancillary service generation. You know, that's going to cost more money because more reliability costs money. As you said, there's no such thing as a free lunch. So this is all just being, you know, haggled out behind the scenes to try and come to an agreement. And by the way, I think I've just met with the new director of ERCOT a few moments ago, a couple hours ago, and Peter Lake at PUC.

Good folks all want to do the right thing. The trouble is ERCOT and PUC's hands are now tied because they can only work with what they got to work with, which is wind and solar. They do not have reliable future designation. So they've been given the job of, they got to draw a permanent plan for Texas for electric energy, and they can only really use what they have at hand, which is wind and solar, which they ain't a good reliable source to work with. So I give them credit. They're working with something that's unrealistic. I think it's going to take somehow the legislature working, how do we increase reliable energy in the state of Texas, which everybody, I think, with any sense, agrees we need more of.

But what gas company or electric company or nuclear company or anything else is going to come into Texas, spend a billion dollars to build an electric generating facility of natural gas, which we should do. With a president of the United States that says, I'm going to cut you off in two years or within six months, with that uncertainty there. Plus, people like Peter Lake, I mean, Larry Fink, Larry Fink, Larry Fink, who is a big investor of- CEO of BlackRock. BlackRock, which is $10 trillion he manages, okay?

And he's a member of what's called the World Economic Forum and sits on the board with George Soros and Al Gates and Al Gore and other non-friends, really, of the free market system here. And he's come over and instituted these environmental, social, and governance funds. Now, I've been fighting this for the past five years on ILGCC, which are 31 states that do oil and gas. I've been vice president there. I passed resolutions to shut down states giving funding to these ESG funds. Anyhow, battle. And Ken Paxton's fighting it. Glenn Hager's fighting it. The legislature will surely do something on it.

Well, we did last session. We said if you discriminate against fuel or guns, we ain't putting any of our retirement dollars with you. We're just several billion dollars. And we just cut off to one finance company, $1.5 billion municipal bonds to one investment company. So we're getting attention by fighting that from Texas like a few others. But anyhow, back to the deal, they've cut off 90% of the funding in these ESG bonds to oil and gas companies. Now, just think it, 90% in five years they've shut down financing. So we're looking at ways, how can we fund a company that is brave enough to build an electric generating gas facility in Texas, which we need for reliable energy?

What would it, I mean, you talk to these oil and gas guys a lot. It's your job. What do they need in order to build one of those? Well, you need, just like anything else, you need certainty to the investment. If you've got an administration that the president, I mean, the Secretary of Treasury one month ago stated oil and gas will be shut down by this president in the United States. Boom. The president has promised he's killing oil and gas. He's overbegging Venezuela, a bunch of communists,

and overbegging the Saudis, give us more gas, more production. He's raiding our supply for security, international security. He's raiding that in order to keep the price of gasoline down to get past an election. I mean, this is heinously obvious what he's doing. At the same time, he's downgrading, slowing, stopping, fighting against any increased production in the United States. So that's a good transition to the national and international aspects of this. There's been a lot of tension between members of the Texas oil and gas industry and the federal government. We see the non-attainment designation kind of being floated around out in West Texas,

allegedly based on false or incorrectly placed data on ozone readings. I saw the governor talk about that. What do you make of this kind of standoff between what the Biden administration hopes to do and what the Texas oil and gas industry hopes to avoid? Well, of course, what we're wanting to do is drill, baby, drill and produce, which is what I believe that we as a free market, being the steward to the voters of Texas, we want to produce from those minerals the good Lord has given us. Understand the state of Texas by itself has enough gas and oil just in the Permian Basin, just to completely supply energy for the United States at current technology for 200 years. That much there. And I think people take far to granted what the heck they're coming after when the EPA decides they're

going to keep in the ground or try to keep in the ground the Permian Basin gas and oil. And again, the oxymoron of that and the president begging Saudis to increase production is just unreal. It defies any logic. And so that's the fight right now. We have an administration that the president has told us we will have for the next decade. This is quoted multiple times. President, we're going to have shortages of food for the next decade and energy for the next decade. You know, yes.

Why? Well, his story is we'll be better off for it. OK, that's his answer. The other part that I think is very significant in the same speeches he gives is he wants to move us from a and this is kind of my deal as an old banker. Now, look at this. He wants to move us from a free market capitalistic society, which is called shareholder capitalism, which means these corporations which are identified as evil by the administration, which are mine, your retirement accounts, and 401ks and IRAs, all of us on mutual funds, the vast 90% of these evil corporations are owned by us taxpaying citizens that have our retirement accounts or investments or college funds or whatever there. So we've got that.

And they're wanting to turn it from a shareholder capitalism. This is their quote. And also by the World Economic Forum, by the way, the George Soros bunch and the Larry Fink bunch from BlackRock. They want to change it from black shareholder to stakeholder capitalism. Stakeholder, shareholder. Shareholders are me and you. So the companies, the corporations work to make profits and returns to us,

the shareholders. People that own shares. That's us. Stakeholder that Biden is going for and Larry Fink are the government, the rich guys like Larry Fink, and special interest groups like Greenpeace or whatever, World Bank, these others. That's who they're trying to move the United States capitalist system from. This is significant in so many levels, not just oil and gas.

It is frightening. One of the kind of issues that is least talked about on this is the kind of stalling of refining capacity in the United States. We haven't seen any new large refinery built since 1976, I think, is the year. But what do you make of that situation? And is there any light at the end of the tunnel on that? At the end, there is some methodology, but we've got to get somebody else in the White House probably to do it. When Donald Trump was in the White House and I first took office, I negotiated an OGCC.

And I was negotiating at that time with the minister of energy in Canada. Fine lady. And it was before BlackRock was still being built, the pipeline and all. And the story was we were having to import. Saudis started attacking Texas. You remember when West Texas Intermediate went to negative number? Yeah. Saudis started that and the Russians trying to get the price under their control. And I started talking with them, said, well, why aren't we buying this oil from the Saudis

and Russians and all these guys anyway, since we have supposedly the biggest supply in Texas? And indeed, the story is we have West Texas Intermediate. Texas oil is light. And you need some heavy crude to do stuff, to mix with our light crude, to do stuff like asphalt, plastics, the heavier products. West Texas Intermediate is great for gasoline and for derivative products like that, but not for the heavy. So we need some of that to mix in our refineries for those many products, such as asphalt and other stuff, the heavy product. Well, guess who has a bunch of it?

Our good friends in Canada. So I started working with the Trump administration, the Department of Energy, and the Minister of Energy in Canada to introduce a bill in the federal Congress that says buy America first. So why not buy from Mexico and Canada, our friends, what is needed for our refineries to be able to produce all of the products? And that would dissuade having to be dependent on Saudi Arabia, Russia for anything. Well, it was going great until we had an election and Biden won. And so I'm still in contact with the Minister of Energy in Canada. And if we ever in two years can turn the White House around, that may be a very much an objective I'll be working. If I remember correctly, the sands in Albertaberta where the keystone pipeline would have connected the u.s to that was heavy yes heavy group yeah and that's that's why it's important a lot of people understand the heavy light part right that's why you need a mixture and now we're relying on saudi

arabia for it instead of our friends in canada because biden shut the pipeline down back uh stateside um one of the another one of the issues that the Railroad Commission oversees is orphan wealth. And that is something that has been brought up quite a bit in the campaign, both in the primary and the general election. You're running against Democrat Luke Warford this November on ballot. Where does – I remember seeing about a month or two ago there was a big announcement from the commission about money granted from the federal government, I believe, to plug more wells. That's right. Where does this stand? Has the commission done a good enough job of ensuring these orphaned wells are plugged? During the past six years, which just coincides with my term, we've set a record every single year for plugging more wells than the legislature asks us to plug.

We've exceeded that for the first time in history. So we're doing more wells. And the way the well plugging does, and there was a major newspaper this past couple of weeks ago did an article that said that the Railroad Commission was costing the Texas taxpayer to plug these orphan wells, and there were thousands of them. The truth is that's an absolute lie. The state taxpayer pays nothing for the cost of plugging orphan wells. Oil and gas companies pay 100% of that cost. Now, the reason it's confusing, like a lot of things, the money goes to the state budget,

and then the legislature reallocates the dollar back out of their budget to the Railroad Commission each year with a target number of wells to plug. Does it come through severance taxes? It comes through all kinds of different fees that the oil companies pay. Yes, those type of taxes. And it goes into that fund, goes into the general budget. So then it's boom. And then when it comes out of there, people, less taxpayer dollars.

Well, technically, maybe by definition, since general budget, probably there's taxpayer dollars. But the fact is 100% of the dollars going in there for plugging the wells is from the oil and gas company. Gotcha. Okay. So they allocate that back. Now, where are we in plugging those wells? We have exceeded the legislative requirements or recommendations every single year the past six years. Which is what?

Well, that's 1,500, whatever the number is they give us to plug a well in a certain amount of money. And we've exceeded the number of wells that they give us money to do in every year. Secondly, I worked on IOGCC. I mentioned earlier, I'm state representative there. And we've worked, basically, John Cornyn has worked with me. And sadly, the dollars that I don't agree with,

funded by the federal government, my story is, well, if they're going to spend the darn stuff, the dollars that I don't agree with funded by the federal government. My story is, well, if they're going to spend the darn stuff, let Texas get its share of it. So I work with General, General Cornelius, he's the attorney general, I remember, Senator Cornelius. I've worked with him very closely and he's been very instrumental in getting Texas. And I think the total is going to be, when it's all over, around $250 million total that will come for us to use to plug abandoned wells. So if people are trying to run against me for the idea of that we're in bad shape on public on plugging wells, we're at all time historical highs on cleaning up abandoned wells in the oil and gas industry.

Tell you where there's been some false information by Texas Monthly and by a lot of our publications and by the political campaigns. They're saying there's all these hundreds of abandoned wells in Texas and just people are upset. Most of these are water wells. Okay. Water, not oil wells. It is against the law for the Railroad Commission to use taxpayer dollars to plug water wells. Those are private wells.

And I tell people, I said, well, and I have sympathy for these folks. There are problems. But by and large, it's got to the point, it's not the voter's place to plug people's private water wells. And in many cases, that's the problem. Now, there's some cases that are extraordinary. People just don't have the money to do it. But what happened is 70 years ago, back when Standard Oil was drilling for oil and gas, they would go out to West Texas and all of the state, and they would drill the wells, and they'd get a dry hole. Don't find the oil.

But they'd strike water. And these landowners back then said, well, we want the water wells. And so since they'd already done it, set it all up for free, these oil companies said, well, if we can be released liability on anything going wrong, we'll deed it over to you for free. We give you the water well. And that happened time and time. Every time there's a dry hole, the landowner wanted the water well.

They got it signed off liability from the state of Texas and from the oil and gas company for this water well they got for free. Well, 50 years later, the kids, the water wells are breaking down or salty or something's wrong with them. Well, they're going back, oh, this was drilled by Standard Oil 50 years ago. So it's the Railroad Commission. It's all wells. No, these are water wells.

And you have to change the law at the legislature to give us the money and the legal permission even to fix those things. A lot of them are sulfur wells, too. And we're not the ones that do sulfur wells. TCEQ, I think, does those. Do we know, real quick, how many orphaned wells are left that the commission knows of? And how many of those are actually former oil wells, not these other ones that you're talking about? The ones that we have on our list, yes, we have a list. And by the way, it's updated constantly because there's always wells that are coming.

Many of them, honestly, you don't want to cap if they're safe, not causing any problem, because new technology can go back in at a lower cost, and you start producing more legitimate taxpayer benefits from oil and gas from those old wells as future technology. There's also a lot. We rank them in order of danger to the environment and to the people and water and everything else. So they're ranked in order of danger to the environment and to the people and water and everything else. So they're ranked in order, those remaining. And, of course, those that are more dangerous, we go cap those first. And I don't know exactly what the number is.

Do you have a ballpark? I really don't. I think it could be 1,000. That may be way over across the state. But, again, a large percentage of those, nobody wants to cap right now. Yeah. So the ones that are dangerous are very mighty, if any, because we get the dangerous ones first. I mean, you call us within 24 hours, there's something bad coming on. You'll have your local office, which we have 16 across the state, at your door to do those with any danger.

So we've won every award you can. In fact, this past year, the Railroad Commission of Texas won four environmental awards, two national, one state, and one international, all for our environmental cleanup. We are the envy of the world for how we handle abandoned wells. In fact, this new federal dollar that's coming down that allows abandoned wells to be plugged, all the states are starting to get the money that produce oil and gas. Guess who they're calling of? How do we do this? Railroad Commission of Texas is going out with our expertise showing states do it because we're the best in the world at it. So if you want to argue with me of abandoned wells being an issue in this campaign, hey, we're the world authority for that and have the most successful award-winning agency in the world on taking care of abandoned

wealth. Well, that's a good place to end it. Chairman Wayne Christian, thanks for joining us today. Thank you very much. Honored to be with you. Thanks.