Federal and state regulators have long relied on oil and gas operators to self-report data covering almost everything they do, but some high-profile missteps and fraud have shaken that framework.
Operators are supposed to provide details around emissions data, the amount of crude spilled in an accident, well pressure test results and how much gas is coming out of a well, among other things. Regulators then review the data and conduct field inspections to verify a company’s report.
The major problem, analysts and environmental groups say, is that governments often lack the staff and resources to properly vet data — making it difficult for agencies to track how accurate the data and reports they receive are.
“Generally, every state is overwhelmed by the work, and because of that, there’s little opportunity to systematically audit the industry’s self-reported data,” said Adam Peltz, a director and senior attorney in the Environmental Defense Fund’s Energy Program. “There’s an unknown but huge number of mistakes and errors and problems that slip through the cracks.”
Colorado oil and gas regulators dropped a bombshell in 2024 when operators reported to the state that their third-party contractors had purposefully falsified thousands of data points for hundreds of wells, fudging pollution numbers and other data related to well remediations.
The Railroad Commission of Texas, which regulates that state’s massive oil and gas industry, flagged 81 instances of operators submitting false data that were referred for legal enforcement since 2020.
Other state regulators — including those in Utah and Virginia — said they’ve never encountered falsified data, while regulators in Oklahoma and Louisiana have not tracked the number but could give anecdotal examples.
On the federal side, the Interior Department has fined and investigated companies for falsifying tests for offshore blowout preventers, faking the data because employees were worried their equipment wouldn’t pass the safety tests.
Much more common than deliberately submitting false information, regulators and experts say, are instances in which operators submit typos or incorrectly logged data. But the limited ability regulators have to check all the documents and data they receive can make it easier for bad actors to hide misfeasance, said Dwayne Purvis, founder and principal adviser of Purvis Energy Advisors.
“I do think most operators in most forms are accurate and reliable,” Purvis said. “The problem is when a person does something they shouldn’t do, they have the ability to conceal it, at least in part, by not reporting it explicitly or correctly.”
POLITICO’s E&E News polled 21 state agencies and five federal agencies about their inspection programs, instances of falsified data and how they police industry self-reporting. Of those, 12 state agencies and three federal agencies responded. All of the written responses from state and federal regulators can be viewed here.
The number of people reviewing data and tests self-reported by the fossil fuel industry varies dramatically from state to state, their responses show.
Regulators in Texas, the country’s largest oil and gas producer, wrote that they employ 131 field inspectors across the state. The New Mexico Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department has just 18 field inspectors on staff, although that state is the second largest producer of oil in the country.
Michigan — which produced 238 times less crude in September 2025 and 56 times less natural gas in 2024 than New Mexico — has 30 field inspectors on staff.
Louisiana’s Department of Conservation and Energy employs 71 field inspectors, said Patrick Courreges, press secretary for the agency.
Inspectors in Louisiana have three tiers for oil and gas wells — wells with a higher number of risk factors like proximity to the coast and age are visited annually. Wells with fewer risk factors, like many located in the northwest part of the state and far from fresh bodies of water, are inspected in-person about once every five years. The rest are generally inspected every three years.
“We look at the material condition, if the well looks like it’s in good shape, if it looks like it’s leaking, if it looks like they’re hiding a leak, are pressures what they should be based on the data operators put in,” Courreges said. “It serves as a way to ground-proof what they’re reporting.”
Seeking compliance
Purvis said state regulators will also do field inspections if one of their staffers notices data that looks off during a desk review of operator-submitted data.
At the Colorado Energy & Carbon Management Commission, compliance staff may notice an incoming form that doesn’t meet the department’s standards or just seems off, said Kristin Kemp, the commission’s public information officer.
That often kicks off a back-and-forth with the operator to see whether there was a clerical error or if something else happened, Kemp said.
In other instances, inaccurate or falsified data is discovered after an incident is caught in the field, said Ted Borrego, an adjunct professor at the University of Houston Law Center and an oil and gas attorney. He said that’s especially true in states like Texas with larger production numbers.
“The district engineers and their staff are so understaffed, unless somebody’s calling up and saying, ‘Hey, there’s a big problem on Jones No. 11 in Brooks County. You really need to check that’ — they don’t check it,” Borrego said. “They look to the east and say, ‘Please God, don’t let there be a problem.’”
Bryce Dubee, a spokesperson for the Railroad Commission of Texas, said in a statement that the agency diligently oversees the industry. And facilities are inspected based on inspection schedules, follow-ups, complaints and emergencies, among other reasons, he said.
“Our staff of 131 oil and gas inspectors are in the field in every part of the state, every single day and are dedicated to the agency’s critical mission of protecting public safety and the environment,” Dubee wrote. “We continuously monitor facilities and work so that violations are resolved immediately.”
Most state regulators polled by E&E News said they require operators to attest or sign an affidavit saying the data and reports they file are accurate.
“It’s no different than like me as a taxpayer submitting my taxes to the IRS,” said Colorado’s Kemp. “There is inherently a degree of expectation that the submitter is behaving professionally and morally and submitting accurate data to the extent that they know they can.”
Courreges, Kemp and Dubee said their agencies work with operators to get them into compliance before reaching for enforcement tools. Most of the time, the agencies find the mistakes are things like simple typos or fields accidentally left blank.
“We want compliance — we’re not trying to be punitive unless they’re refusing to comply,” Courreges said. “The second we say there’s a problem, they usually say, ‘Oh my god, we need to fix this. What do we need to do?’”
But when oil and gas data is deliberately falsified, it can lead to serious safety issues.
Enforcement actions
Natalee Dean rushed to her husband’s job site in October 2019 after she couldn’t reach him for hours.
Jacob Dean worked at Aghorn Energy in Odessa, Texas, and had gone to check on a malfunctioning pump at one of the company’s production sites. Firefighters found both Jacob, 44 and Natalee, 37, lying dead at the job site — overcome with poisonous hydrogen sulfide gas.
Aghorn Energy officials later told federal regulators that they had falsified mechanical integrity tests and pressure charts in forms they submitted to the state Railroad Commission. Aghorn, the Kodiak Roustabout support services company and Aghorn executive Trent Day were convicted and sentenced in 2025 for charges relating to violating the Safe Water Drinking Act, the Clean Air Act and workplace safety laws.
Aghorn was ordered to pay a $1 million criminal fine, Kodiak was told to pay a $400,000 fine, and Day was sentenced to five months in prison. A message sent to Aghorn Energy’s LinkedIn profile was not returned, and efforts to find contact information for Kodiak were not successful. Both companies have active registrations with the Texas secretary of state.
In another case, an offshore oil and gas servicing company bypassed safety valves and falsified mandated safety tests filed with the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, Interior Department officials found in a 2023 investigation.
Those tests ensure equipment at an offshore facility is functioning, helping to prevent spills into federal waters. Interior investigators gave their findings to the Department of Justice, which did not prosecute anyone associated with the incident.
Interior did not name the operator in its summary of the investigation. The federal department also did not respond to questions about the operator’s identity and whether it fined or took any enforcement actions against the operator.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management also did not respond to questions from E&E News. In a statement, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement wrote that it conducts annual inspections of offshore platforms and requires operators to undergo third-party audits of their safety management systems every three years.
BSEE officials wrote they cannot discuss investigative details related to falsified data or tests because they can involve ongoing enforcement or law-enforcement activity.
State and federal regulators have a wide range of enforcement actions they can take if an operator is found to have falsified data or reports. In some cases, courts have fined operators millions of dollars and criminally prosecuted employees.
EPA said in a statement that federal environmental laws make it a felony to knowingly submit false information in required reports. They wrote that self-reporting by regulated entities is a cornerstone of EPA’s enforcement and compliance program because it “brings problems to light quickly, speeds corrective action, and helps prevent harm to communities and the environment.”
“If EPA encounters incorrect data or reports, the agency can take civil or criminal enforcement action as appropriate,” EPA said.
Dubee with the Railroad Commission of Texas said it’s also a felony in Texas to file false documents and carries a minimum penalty of $1,000. The commission could revoke permits depending on the severity of the false filing and would assist in a local district attorney’s prosecution if the attorney pursues criminal charges.
“We would note that it is not a common action for district attorneys to take on these matters,” Dubee said in a statement.
Faked data points
The Colorado Energy & Carbon Management Commission issued notices of alleged violation to seven operators last July for submitting falsified remediation data.
Those deliberately altered records were discovered after officials with Chevron and Civitas Resources approached officials with the commission in the summer of 2024. The companies told regulators that they believed some of their subcontractors had submitted false data about levels of pollution around old, plugged wells.
Colorado officials found that two environmental consulting firms — Eagle Environmental Consulting and Tasman Geosciences — submitted falsified laboratory reports to regulators between 2021 and 2024. Tasman Geosciences, which submitted data on behalf of Occidental Petroleum, self-reported that one of its employees had altered lab reports and associated forms without Occidental’s knowledge.
More than 3,200 data points were faked, state investigators have found so far, affecting 404 oil and gas locations in Weld County, just northeast of Boulder. The investigation is ongoing, Kemp said, and more enforcement actions could come as a result.
In many cases, Colorado officials said, the altered data was used to support requests that state regulators designate an oil and gas site closed, or fully remediated. That ultimately led to the closure of multiple oil and gas sites that otherwise would not be considered fully remediated, according to the Colorado Energy & Carbon Management Commission.
The office of Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser (D) said it could not comment on or confirm whether it is considering charges related to false reports, citing office policy.
Neither Eagle Environmental nor Tasman Geosciences responded to a request for comment.
Chevron, which had contracted with Eagle Environmental, said in a statement that the contractor’s data falsifications were done to hide its fraudulent actions from both Chevron and state regulators.
Allison Cook, a spokesperson for Chevron, said in a statement that the company has dedicated additional personnel to help review all contractor reports about well site remediations and has increased its audits of lab reports and of data submitted by third-party consultants.
“Chevron remains committed to conducting business in full compliance with the laws and regulations in Colorado, as well as in all other jurisdictions in which we do business,” Cook wrote. “Operating responsibly and ethically is a core value at Chevron and we expect the same from our contractors.”
That these incidents were reported by companies themselves raises questions about whether Colorado regulators would have found them otherwise, said Peltz of the Environmental Defense Fund. And while these instances of falsifying data have come to light, he said it’s impossible to know how many others remain undiscovered.
“Until there’s more regulatory capacity — funding, staffing, data management — we’re always going to be unsure about how much you can trust the data we’re getting from industry,” Peltz said.
