I not only enjoyed the Chron’s endorsement of Jon Rosenthal for Railroad Commissioner, I learned a few things about Bo French.
Rep. Jon Rosenthal
Within 48 hours [of French’s super racist tweet about the students at the UT-Ohio State game], Republican officials were racing to boldly condemn — or meekly distance — themselves from French, including U.S. Sen. John Cornyn and Gov. Greg Abbott. Outgoing Rep. Dan Crenshaw also weighed in, calling out French for being “the guy who used Navy SEAL Chris Kyle’s death to make [himself] a bunch of money.” Kyle’s wife had to sue French in a fight for control of her late husband’s company and to compel French to stop using his name.
In addition to being a loathsome racist who views the world as “white vs everyone else,” French is such a political dilettante that a race that was likely to be a longshot for Democrats suddenly appears competitive.
Perhaps Democrat Jon Rosenthal should thank French for the in-kind contribution. Even the betting markets think he now has a real chance at an upset victory.
We’ve spilled plenty of ink on French since he eked out a primary victory over incumbent Railroad Commissioner Jim Wright. He is the apotheosis of what Texas Republicans have wrought by allowing their party to be taken over by extremists who appeal to the crudest, most vile instincts of their base. We wouldn’t endorse him for dog catcher, let alone one of the most important regulatory positions in the state. Even Abbott, before eventually endorsing him, acknowledged that French would “wreck” the oil and gas industry. He has no meaningful oil and gas experience and no real policy ideas. He’s basically an industry plant, bankrolled by a super PAC funded by billionaire oil tycoons Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks because he fits their bizarre, authoritarian vision for Texas.
He’s also a coward. French plays tough online but we’ve never seen him dare to tread beyond his partisan safe spaces. His father made millions drilling for oil and, last we checked, his biggest individual campaign donor is his mother.
Before he started cosplaying as a Texas Republican, French seemed to enjoy the finer things in life. There’s an odd photo of him in the Getty Images archives attending a launch party in New York City for Valentino perfume alongside Italian baron Cody Franchetti and Fabian Basabe, a former reality TV star turned Florida politician who had to pay $450,000 in a sexual harassment suit brought by two male staffers.
We wanted to ask him about that photo, but French declined to meet with the editorial board.
Our familiar election year refrain is that voters tend to gloss over Texas Railroad Commission elections because the agency’s title obscures how important it is. This is an agency that claims to “regulate” the oil and gas sector, but instead regularly rubber-stamps and turns a blind eye to the industry’s worst behavior. In August, the agency made the unprecedented decision to eliminate public comment from its meetings. This decision was so widely panned, and so brazenly anti-democratic, that the Republican chairman of the House Energy Resources Committee threatened to abolish the Railroad Commission altogether.
This is an agency run by unethical buffoons who rake in campaign donations from oil and gas companies they regulate, trade oil and gas stocks and own mineral interests.
It is in dire need of adult leadership. If you live near an oil patch where abandoned oil wells are polluting your drinking water, you’ll probably want to know which officials are responsible for holding the bad actors accountable in the state’s most important industry.
Rosenthal would thrive in this role.
I did not know about the perfume show thing. You should click on the (gift) link to the endorsement and scroll down to see the accompanying picture, it’s amazing. As I say in the vibe check post, people are still posting and talking about that tweet and what an utter turd Bo French is. I wish more of them would also give Rosenthal a plug, but I figure even the lowest-information voters in their audience, if they happen to be from Texas and plan to vote in November, will remember the name “Bo French”, and act accordingly.
Two other items of note: One is that someone ought to get the big players in the oil and gas industry to explain why they haven’t un-endorsed French, who as noted in that Chron endorsement and pretty much everywhere else is completely uninformed about that industry. And two, as Chris Tomlinson points out in a separate article, he really is a danger to us all.
French rarely provides details about his policies, but he’s talked about repealing rules and regulations that the three Republicans currently on the commission passed in 2025. Those rules, collectively known as Chapter 4, are intended to stop human-caused earthquakes and prevent old wells from turning into geysers spewing toxic, radioactive wastewater into the air and poisoning drinking water.
Republican Railroad Commissioner Christi Craddick negotiated the regulations with the state’s largest oil and gas producers. But small and medium-sized operators and the companies that dispose of oilfield wastewater opposed the stricter environmental standards because they cost more to meet.
“All of my friends and associates in that part of the business were very upset by those regulations because they just massively increase the cost for them to do what they need to do,” French told The Texan, a right-leaning podcast. “I’m going to look to reevaluate those and propose some new rules to change what they implemented.”
Most environmentalists and state regulators in New Mexico do not think Chapter 4 went far enough. Companies are hauling New Mexico oilfield wastewater into Texas because the regulations are looser. All the while, cities here are having a harder time finding drinking water.
“We’re running out of water. We have too much produced (waste) water to deal with. We don’t know what to do with it,” Rosenthal explained. “What we really need to be doing is incentivizing technologies to reclaim this water.”
Water flows through the biggest challenges for both the Railroad Commission and the industry. Making sure the 12,000 abandoned “orphan” wells do not pollute the water supply is an ongoing problem. Wastewater is breaking out of dozens of zombie wells, creating toxic geysers, and scientists warn it could get much worse.
If the industry wants to survive, it needs reasonable regulations, or else the public will turn against it.
Even if French weren’t a huge piece of shit, who wants any of that? Here’s my interview with Jon Rosenthal. Get to know him, make sure your friends know about him, and vote for him for November.