Follow the money

Thomas Shepstone, in his letter printed below this week, asks if he can assume that our position on transparency, stated in our editorial of August 19, includes the Open Space Institute. The answer is yes. It seems to us that any party, regardless of its positions or purposes, that accepts money from taxpayers, ought to be willing to disclose factors such as financial interests and funding sources that might pose a conflict of interest with regard to how it uses that money—and the public stances that it adopts.

This is particularly important in the case of gas drilling, in which the public is being inundated by purportedly disinterested studies arguing for the desirability or dangers of natural gas drilling, all of which claim to be “sound science.” We think it is therefore imperative to “follow the money,” as Deep Throat said to Bob Woodward in “All the President’s Men.” How an entity is funded, and whether those funds are being used in ways that benefit the people making the decisions as to how to use them, is one way to judge the trustworthiness of the reports issued or the positions taken.

That certainly doesn’t mean that every study funded by a group that has money on the line will be false. But it does give us warning as to where we might take a closer look. For this reason, in an ideal world we’d like to get transparency not only from government-related entities and public companies, but from all the organizations that will be throwing their two cents into the natural gas drilling debate. Unfortunately, the law does not provide for disclosure for private entities.

That being said, if we start worrying about conflicts of interest with regard to natural gas drilling propaganda, there is clearly a lot more to worry about from the multi-billion dollar gas drilling industry than from its opponents, which, given his focus on Catskill Mountainkeeper, seems to be Shepstone’s concern. Damascus Citizens for Sustainability, probably the single most active opponent to the push for minimally regulated gas drilling in Wayne County, must resort to community events like flea markets and auctions (see page 15) to stay afloat. The 2009 profits for just one company making a play on the Marcellus Shale, Hess, were over $2 billion. The comparison is ludicrous.

It might be argued that some national environmental groups are providing money for propaganda as well, such as the recent event naming the Upper Delaware River as the nation’s most endangered river in 2010, sponsored by American Rivers. But again, the comparison with the gas industry is comical. The American Rivers budget for the entire year of 2009 was about $9 million. Compare this to the $4.2 million in gas industry lobbying expenses in Pennsylvania from January 2007 to March 2010, according to a report released earlier this year by PA Common Cause and the PA League of Women Voters. In New York, Chesapeake Energy alone spent close to $1 million lobbying in the first half of this year. And that’s only lobbying expenditures; we haven’t even touched on expenditures like endowments for universities and think-tanks of the sort we rely on to produce reports on the dangers and benefits of fracking, media advertising and, of course, the all-important expense of having a fleet of lawyers on retainer.

So we agree with Shepstone. We want as much transparency as possible from all parties who participate in the natural gas drilling debate, from Catskill Mountainkeeper to the cooperative extensions to the Sullivan County Partnership for Economic Development. At the Upper Delaware Council (UDC) meeting on September 2, a member of the public even suggested that local elected officials and possibly even UDC members disclose whether they hold gas leases. Not a bad idea.

We suspect that when the information is out, it will be clear that there’s a lot more money out there influencing people to favor gas drilling than to oppose it. But if the facts show us to be wrong, so be it. The most important thing is for the public to have as much information as possible to evaluate what it’s being told, or sold, as the case may be.

Also in this issue:

• An ounce of prevention

(Not a scientific poll)

Last week's results:

Do you care about having zoning in your residential area enforced?

Yes: 69.44%

No: 19.44%

Yes, except for on me: 8.33%

Not sure: 2.78%

Dr. Punnybone

Makes the Heart Grow Fonder