Chesapeake Energy Says Environmental Extremists in Bed with New York Times

• Susan Phillips
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  Susan Phillips tells stories about the consequences of political decisions on people's every day lives. She has worked as a reporter for WHYY since 2004. Susan's coverage of the 2008 Presidential election resulted in a story on the front page of the New York Times. In 2010 she traveled to Haiti to cover the earthquake. That same year she produced an award-winning series on Pennsylvania's natural gas rush called "The Shale Game." She received a 2013 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Journalism Award for her work covering natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania. She has also won several Edward R. Murrow awards for her work with StateImpact. In 2013/14 she spent a year at MIT as a Knight Science Journalism Fellow. She has also been a Metcalf Fellow, an MBL Logan Science Journalism Fellow and reported from Marrakech on the 2016 climate talks as an International Reporting Project Fellow. A graduate of Columbia School of Journalism, she earned her Bachelor's degree in International Relations from George Washington University.

Industry representatives are fiercely defending the “Shale Revolution,” slamming Sunday’s New York Times piece about how the gas companies are exaggerating the extent of shale gas reserves. The article cited emails written by industry executives, scientists, and analysts, which question the hype on the abundance of the country’s untapped natural gas. Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McClendon appeared on CNBC’s Mad Money with Jim Cramer Tuesday night. McClendon rebuked the Times, saying “environmental extremists” manipulated reporter Ian Urbina.
Mad Money’s Jim Cramer has pushed investment in natural gas for years, saying it has the potential to wean the country off foreign oil, create jobs, and reduce greenhouse gases. Responding to Cramer’s questions about the leaked emails, McClendon shrugs off those sent by one of his own geologists, calling the scientist a novice. McClendon does make some convincing arguments that although the economics of gas drilling isn’t creating a windfall with current prices, he says he hopes demand for natural gas will rise as the cost of oil rises. Thus pushing up the price of natural gas. And he points to big oil’s entry into the market as an indication that there’s gold in them there hills of Pennsylvania.
Perhaps lease holders in Washington County could shed light on this debate by letting us know the recent trajectory of their royalty checks.
McClendon himself has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the campaigns of current Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett. The Philadelphia Daily News has a fascinating cover story Wednesday about McClendon written by Will Bunch.
The piece reveals how the Oklahoma City gas-man made his first donation to Corbett back in 2004, when Corbett was an obscure Pittsburgh lawyer running in a poorly covered race for state Attorney General. Corbett of course, is so pro-drilling, he’s threatened to veto an impact fee that could help struggling communities cope with the gas rush. Was McClendon clairvoyant when he made that investment in influence? As Bunch says, that early donation is a mystery that may never be solved.
With all the money invested, however, it’s unclear how much influence McClendon has with Corbett. State Impact’s own Scott Detrow reported the story of how Chesapeake and the Governor had a falling out.

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