I'd run across the TRC myself some years ago, had much the same question, started investigating that and a few related issues, and ... just kind of kept going.

Gordon Rattray Taylor made the observation most often presented as "the most exciting phrase to hear in science , the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' (I found it!), but 'That's funny ...'". (Often attributed to Isaac Asimov, see: <https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/03/02/eureka-funny/>.

The same relationship holds strongly elsewhere. "Why the hell is the Texas Railroad Commission in charge of oil production?" was pretty much what started me on this rabbit hole. Yergin's chapter off-handedly mentions the "Rule of Capture" (which originates with British Common law and the legality or illegality of hunting wild game on one's own, others', or public (Crown) lands, and through a Texas Supreme Court case (Houston & Texas Central Railroad Co. v. East (1904), of which I would still like to find the court's opinion) came to be applied to groundwater, and by later extension, oil and other "mobile" minerals.[1] To the extent I have found the court's opinion, it is, roughly (the reference isn't immediately available): the behaviour of subsurface water is unknown and unknowable and hence the Rule of Capture applies. This was untrue at the time and has been further strongly refuted by subsequent geological and hydrological science. Law, however, is precendential rather than scientific, and poorly-founded rulings may remain in effect for a very long time.

There are a few related ... mysteries and/or inconsistencies in the law and economics of mineral extraction, including Hotelling's Rule, which purports to explain the pricing of mineral resources (including coal and oil), but ... based on an extremely reliable and detailed pricing history of oil, absolutely fails in that. Hotelling cites numerous sources, including himself and earlier economic works (Gray, 1914, and Ricardo, 1909[2]), but no geological or scientific works outside the domain of economics, which strikes me as ... a peculiar oversight.

Back on Google+ I was asked in a discussion whether or not there was some relationship between the oil industry and climate denialism, much of it based on "Young Earth" creationism. That lead me to Lyman Stewart, founder of Union Oil of California, as well as Biola University, and a set of publications entitled "The Fundamentals".[3] "Biola" is an initialism for "Bible Institute of Los Angeles", and the movement known as religious fundamentalism takes its name from the latter. Both Biola and Fundamentalists have had a long association with young-earth creationism and many forms of climate and other denialism.[4][5] Stewart is only one of many profoundly religious early oil magnates, with another notable exemplar being John D. Rockefeller (and even more so his wife Laura). Extractive industries generally seem to attract and/or cultivate highly religious types, and even the field of geology is markedly more religious than other sciences based on various citations I've seen.

I'm not attributing any particular conspiracy here so much as a tendency for such behaviours, ideologies, and thought patterns to be mutually reinforcing, though in what I see as highly pernicious ways.

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Notes:

1. See "History and Evolution of the Rule of Capture" <https://www.twdb.texas.gov/publications/reports/numbered_rep...> (PDF)

2. The "Law of Rent".

3. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyman_Stewart>

4. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biola_University>

5. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fundamentals>