Chrysta Castaneda, Castaneda Law Firm
Interview and summary by Genneca Houser
Chrysta Castaneda is a well-educated woman and business owner with a
unique background that couples engineering and law. What’s more is that
she has extensive experience to pair with her education. Chrysta has
both a degree in engineering and a law degree. She’s the founding owner
of her law firm, Casteneda Law Firm. She’s run for public office
recently, and she’s got a motivation to make a difference with her
skills in the oil and gas industry.
We begin by discussing Chrysta’s impressive background and experience. She gives a little insight into her biggest case (Mesa Petroleum Partners LP vs. Baytech LLP
). The verdict on this 2016 case gave her national recognition as well
as induction into the National Law Journals Elite Trial Lawyers of 2018
among other awards. Chrysta also talks for a moment about how she came
to find a place within such a unique arena.
“It was a fascinating case, took a long time to try, very complex. But, in the end it was good to win it.” – Chrysta Casteneda
This last year, Chrysta made a run for the office of Chairman for the
Texas Railroad Commission. She did not take home a victory in November,
but there were issues brought to light during Chrysta’s campaign that
she still makes an effort to speak out about today. The main focus is on
flaring in Texas, and Chrysta has some unique ideas for what to do
about it.
“The amount of waste of the natural gas that’s produced
in the form of flaring, which is just lighting it on fire when it comes
up out of the well, is enough to power every home in Texas continuously
if we would only turn that natural gas into electricity.” Chrysta
Castaneda
We took some time to discuss what happened to cause such a disastrous
power outage in Texas recently as well as gained some insight into the
speculative reasons given across the varying media sources. There were
many “explanations” for why the power grid failed during the cold snap,
but Chrysta gave a more detailed illustration of what really went wrong.
“The power generators who rely on electricity could not
get enough natural gas at the right pressures to drive their plants and
generate the electricity and the natural gas producers are saying that
they couldn’t produce enough natural gas and get it into the pipeline
because their equipment runs on electricity… so they were mutually
dependent on each other.” – Chrysta Casteneda
Another issue that Chrysta feels is really important to highlight is
the topic of venting. We spoke about venting as well as possible
repercussions a person may face if they get caught either flaring or
venting.
“There really aren’t any meaningful penalties for being
caught and furthermore there’s not enough money put into staff and
measures to actually enforce this.” – Chrysta Casteneda
At one point, Chrysta shared with us what her actions would be had
she been elected to the Texas Railroad Commission. She also shared what
actions she’s taken to continue highlighting the issues and push to
bring change. As a bonus, Chrysta mentions one of her published works, a
book called The Last Trial of T. Boone Pickens.
“I’ve been doing a lot of advocacy work. I’ve been doing a
lot of tv and radio and podcasts and written opinions on, in
particular,
