Wayne Christian, an elected commissioner of Texas’s oil and gas regulator, cursed at a woman speaking during a public comment period the same day he avoided attending a required legislative hearing.

Christian is a Republican first elected in 2016 to the Texas Railroad Commission, a confusingly named state agency that regulates oil and gas and has nothing to do with railroads. During a Sept. 15 public comment period at a commission meeting, Christian “began grilling” the executive director of Commission Shift, a nonprofit watchdog group, according to Inside Climate News.

“How dare you come here,” Christian told the group’s director, Virginia Palacios, according to Inside Climate News. “You can’t come here today and do anything but b---- some more.”

Palacios was testifying about a new policy the Railroad Commission recently introduced that increases the number of “listening sessions” the agency holds throughout the state. However, it allows commissioners to decide whether to allow public comment during their meetings instead of holding them by default.

State Rep. Drew Darby, a San Angelo Republican, called upon Christian to testify about Railroad Commission policies at a hearing of the Texas House Committee on Energy Resources. A chair reserved for Christian sat empty the entire meeting, with Christian telling legislators in a letter that he had a scheduling conflict, according to Inside Climate News.

“I do not recall my request for his presence as being optional,” Darby said during the meeting, according to the Texas Tribune. “It is beyond clear that Commissioner Christian has willfully chosen to defy this committee. A sitting commissioner absconding from his agency’s oversight hearing is nothing more than a mockery of the Texas legislature and the legislative process.”

The Railroad Commission is at the center of an unusually tight race between Democrat Jon Rosenthal, a state legislator and oilfield mechanical engineer, and Bo French, a former county Republican party chair. French has recently come under fire from fellow Republicans for racist social media posts about University of Texas students of South Asian descent celebrating a win at a football game.