Energy companies pledge $100 million to help West Texas and New Mexico cope with traffic and other facilities needed for influx of workers

Fuel Fix:
Seventeen energy companies operating in West Texas' booming Permian Basin said they're pledging more than $100 million to help improve roads, schools, health care, housing and workforce training.

The mostly rural region in West Texas and southeastern New Mexico was upended by the oil-drilling resurgence in Permian shale in the last couple of years, and the community services and housing supplies were woefully unprepared for the influx of new people.

The Permian Strategic Partnership, which was formed earlier this year, has quickly grown from a handful of companies to 17 and counting. The list includes Big Oil players Chevron, Exxon Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell, as well as a bevy of Houston producers such as Occidental Petroleum, EOG Resources, Anadarko Petroleum Corp., Apache Corp., and major services providers such as Schlumberger and Halliburton.

The partnership announced its new pledge to serve as seed money for public-private partnerships to help support the necessary growth. After all, the energy companies struggle to operate on dilapidated roads in cities without the necessary housing, health care and schools to accommodate their employees.

For most of this year the Midland-Odessa region has represented the nation's hottest housing market, according to the National Association of Realtors, beating out coastal tech centers like San Francisco and Boston.

The companies announced the initiative Monday in a letter published in the Midland Reporter-Telegram, a sister paper of the Houston Chronicle.

"A once-in-a-generation opportunity has brought us together for a common purpose – to strengthen the communities where we live and work," the partnership said in the announcement.
...
It is not just for roads and construction projects.  The group will also help recruit non-energy workers such as doctors and healthcare providers and teachers for schools in the area.  They will also have to deal with an acute housing shortage in the region.

This seems like a very Texas way of dealing with the growth.  It beats raising taxes on everyone. 

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