AUSTIN, Texas — Elizabeth Ames Jones, Chairman of the Railroad Commission of Texas, was appointed to the Research Partnership to Secure Energy for America (RPSEA). The RPSEA is a non-profit corporation established to help meet the nation's growing need for hydrocarbon resources produced from reservoirs in America. It is a consortium of premier energy research universities, independent research organizations, national laboratories, energy companies, and federal or state governmental agencies.

“Texas’s position as America’s leader in the domestic production of oil and gas makes us an important participant in the development of our country’s national energy policy. I’m honored to serve as a member of the Research Partnership,” said Jones, who was appointed to represent the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission, of which she is a member.

The goal of RPSEA, located in Sugar Land, Texas, is to become an innovative institution that is instrumental in meeting U.S. needs for technology to commercially develop the country's ultra-deepwater and unconventional onshore hydrocarbon resources in a safe and environmentally sensitive manner.

“ It’s important that the public, private and academic sectors work together to meet our goal for a secure energy future,” Chairman Jones stated. “America continues to be overly dependent on foreign energy from unstable regions of the world and it’s clear that the responsible development of country’s own vast unconventional reserves of oil and gas, both onshore and off, will be a critically important component to our future energy needs.”

The Railroad Commission of Texas was established in 1891, and has several regulatory divisions that oversee the Texas oil and gas industry, natural gas utilities, pipeline safety, safety in the liquefied petroleum gas industry, and the surface mining of coal.

Jones, a former Texas State Representative, has served as one of three Railroad Commissioners since 2005. She was elected statewide to a full term last November and serves as the state’s 44th Railroad Commissioner and the 2nd woman ever to be elected to the post.