Would Texas control its own oil and gas regulation?

Texas already does. The agency that regulates oil and gas in Texas is a Texas agency, and it has been for more than a century. Independence does not create that control. It removes the federal layer sitting on top of it.

The oil and gas regulator is already Texan

The primary regulator of oil and natural gas in Texas is the Railroad Commission of Texas, a state agency with jurisdiction over exploration, production, and the pipelines that move oil and gas inside the state. It has held that authority since the Oil and Gas Conservation Law of 1919. Its job is to prevent waste, protect the rights of mineral owners, and guard against pollution. None of that runs through Washington, and none of it disappears at independence. The institution that governs the most important industry in Texas is built and staffed in Texas right now.

The resource itself is overwhelmingly Texas-owned

Here is what makes Texas different from most oil states. Texas mineral rights are overwhelmingly privately owned, not federally owned, because Texas kept its own public lands when it joined the union in 1845 instead of handing them to Washington. In much of the West, the federal government owns the minerals and controls the leasing. In Texas, the oil and gas under the ground belongs to Texans and Texas landowners. That ownership does not change at independence, which means the foundation of the industry, who owns the resource, is already settled in Texas's favor.

The federal layer is the part that lifts off

Where Washington touches Texas oil and gas, it does so from the outside, through federal agencies that set rules on emissions, drilling, and permitting that apply nationwide. That federal layer is exactly what independence removes. What remains is the Texas regulatory system, run by the Railroad Commission, which Texans can then shape to fit Texas rather than to satisfy a fifty-state mandate written for very different places.

A regulator built for an energy economy

The Railroad Commission already oversees one of the largest energy industries on the planet. Texas produces about 43 percent of America's crude oil and 27 percent of its natural gas, and the agency that regulates that output is the Texas one, not a federal one. The expertise to govern oil and gas at national scale is not something Texas would have to build after independence. It already exists in Austin and has for generations.

Self-government means Texas writes its own energy rules

Under the current arrangement, the most consequential rules on production can be written in Washington and applied to Texas whether Texas agrees or not. Independence ends that. Whether Texas regulates more lightly, holds the line, or adjusts where Texans see fit becomes a Texas decision, answerable to Texas voters and the Texans who work the fields, instead of a policy handed down from outside.

The bottom line

Texas already regulates its own oil and gas through the Railroad Commission, on a resource Texans overwhelmingly own. Independence simply lifts off the federal layer and leaves the entire industry under Texan control.