Drillers Say Environmentalists Are Using Fracking To Raise Cash
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Scott Detrow
Todd Vachon / WHYY/Newsworks.org
Drilling opponents protested outside a Marcellus Shale Coalition conference in Septemberorg
Our friends at the Innovation Trail have filed a report from an American Petroleum Institute-sponsored drilling forum in Albany, where a drilling advocate made the case that environmental groups are only hyping up concerns about fracking in order to raise cash:
Why is there such a big fuss over fracking?
According to Karen Moreau, who heads the New York State Petroleum Council, environmentalists have stirred up the controversy as a fundraising tool.
“It’s part of a movement to enrich the environmental groups,” she says, “Because through hysteria, and creating an environment of fear, it certainly does cause people to support the mission of some of these groups.”
Environmentalists, obviously, disagree with that assertion.
“That’s preposterous,” says Katherine Nadeau, of the Environmental Advocates for New York,”[Our members] are incredibly concerned about the harmful effects of fracking that have happened all over the country.”
Nadeau argues that her organization has attracted more members and more money in recent years, because fracking is such a bad idea.
“[The drilling industry] is just trying to paint us as someone who stands to gain,” she says, “At the end of the day, it’s these multi-billion dollar corporations that have something to gain. Most New Yorkers have something to lose.”
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