• Chamber, Sierra Club Wage Dueling Shale-Gas Campaigns

News
July 26, 2012
By Amy Harder
 
The two sides of the debate over developing shale natural gas will be on full display over the next few days in Washington.
 
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Thursday is launching a multimillion-dollar campaign to promote the economic benefits of shale-gas production.
 
Then just two days later, the Sierra Club and other environmental groups are organizing the first-ever nationally-focused rally in Washington to oppose hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” the controversial extraction technology key to unlocking shale gas reserves.
 
The Chamber’s campaign, which will be officially announced at the group’s Washington headquarters on Thursday, has been rolled out over the past two weeks in three states that have seen a boom in shale gas development in recent years: Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.
 
“The goal is to really find and highlight the success stories of businesses and firms that are not necessarily what you would think of when you think of shale production,” said Christopher Guith, vice president for policy at the Chamber’s Institute for 21st Century Energy.
 
The campaign will include advertisements and public education. Guith declined to specify how much the Chamber is spending but noted it was “multimillions this year.” He added that the campaign, planning for which started early this year, would go on indefinitely.
 
According to a fact sheet the Chamber distributed at its Ohio kickoff event, shale gas created almost 2,300 jobs in 2011 and contributed $162 million to the state’s GDP. Similar positive figures are included on fact sheets for the other two states.
 
Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and other Northeast and Appalachian states sit atop the Marcellus shale formation, a natural gas field considered second in size only to one spanning Qatar and Iran. Ohio is also starting to produce natural gas from a neighboring shale formation.
 
The Chamber in its campaign is first focusing on the three states (Pennsylvania and Ohio also happen to be presidential battlegrounds), but expects to eventually expand to other shale gas-intensive states throughout the country. It also is likely to ramp up its efforts in New York, but it’s holding off on any major rollout until the state’s governor, Democrat Andrew Cuomo, decides in the next few weeks whether he will allow hydraulic fracturing.
 
Guith said the voice of the shale gas boom has come largely from the oil and gas industry so far, and getting the Chamber involved helps emphasize the broader economic benefits that the development is triggering.
 
“We had discussions with members both in and out of the petroleum industry about how it was time to really evolve the debate,” Guith said. “It’s fair to say that when the public debate first started it was very one-sided.”
 
That other side will be raising its voice at the Capitol on Saturday during the anti-fracking rally. Organizers, including 350.org founder Bill McKibben and Josh Fox, producer of the controversial and influential Gasland documentary, say thousands of people will show up. Protesters are also planning to march to the headquarters of America’s Natural Gas Alliance and the American Petroleum Institute. (The Chamber is not on the itinerary—at least not yet.)
 
“We can say with absolute truthfulness that we scheduled [Thursday’s] event long before we heard about their event,” Guith said of the environmentalists’ rally. “We are certainly aware of these types of activities.”
 
The Chamber has good reason to be aware. McKibben was integral in leading the protests that ultimately got President Obama to delay his decision on the Keystone XL pipeline last fall. Saturday’s protest, like the Keystone rallies last summer, will feature celebrities, including Mark Ruffalo and Margot Kidder.
 
According to a website promoting the “Stop the Frack Attack” rally, protesters will be calling for tougher regulations to prevent water contamination and other environmental effects.
 
At least ostensibly and for now, the Chamber has the White House on its side. Obama and his top aides have continuously highlighted the economic benefits shale gas is bringing to the country.
 
“We will be having a chat with the administration in the relatively near future,” Guith said.