Commonwealth Foundation Lists Gas Drilling "Foes" And "Obstructionists"

Scott Detrow

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Scott Detrow is a congressional correspondent for NPR. He also co-hosts the NPR Politics Podcast.

Detrow joined NPR in 2015 to cover the presidential election. He focused on the Republican side of the 2016 race, spending time on the campaign trail with Donald Trump, and also reported on the election's technology and data angles.

Detrow worked as a statehouse reporter for member stations WITF in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and KQED in San Francisco, California. He has also covered energy policy for NPR's StateImpact project, where his reports on Pennsylvania's hydraulic fracturing boom won a DuPont-Columbia and national Edward R. Murrow Award in 2013.

July 27, 2011 | 5:02 PM

Think the odds are stacked against natural gas drillers?
The Commonwealth Foundation certainly does.
The group has released a 12-page document profiling groups it’s accusing of leading the charge against an “industry [that] has directly and indirectly created tens of thousands of new jobs, with tens of thousands more to come if natural gas is allowed to continue in a safe and responsible manner; paid out billions in royalty and lease payment to landowners; and contributed hundreds of millions of dollars to state and local government tax coffers.”
Among the Commonwealth Foundation’s offenders: the Pulitzer Prize-winning nonprofit Propublica, which has focused a great deal of resources on covering natural gas drilling.
Other “foes or obstructionists” include the Heinz Foundation, documentarian Josh Fox, and national groups like the Ford Foundation, Energy Foundation and Turner Foundation.
The report’s conclusion:

To listen to environmental groups and liberal activists, one might think the fossil-fuel industry—especially natural gas in Pennsylvania—controls the levers of power in Harrisburg and Washington with their vast financial resources.
While they certainly have the resources to try to prevent government from over-taxing and over-regulating an already heavily taxed and regulated industry, it is not at the expense of their opponents.
As illustrated by this policy brief, opponents of natural gas exploration and its processes do not lack for money or mouthpieces. The anti-gas industry has multimillionaires such as the Sandlers and Heinzs attacking them; a journalistic organization in ProPublica that has exceeded 100 articles dedicated to ginning up anti-drilling paranoia; dozens of well-heeled environmental groups that exaggerate or outright deceive the public about the impacts of gas drilling; and an Oscar nominated film producer spreading disinformation across the country.
Meanwhile, the gas industry continues to explore and innovate, safely using the hydraulic fracturing processes that have enabled Pennsylvania to access important natural resources, creating jobs and keeping energy prices low. It is not a business without risks, but its enemies would be recognized as having greater integrity if they stopped demonizing with a broad brush, told the entire truth, and worked collaboratively with natural gas to attain their environmental goals.