Back to School: "Frackademia" Alive and Well at U.S. Universities, Says New Report

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The Public Accountability Initiative (PAI) has published a timely โ€œback to schoolโ€ report concluding that โ€œfrackademiaโ€ is alive and well at U.S.ย universities.ย 

While only focusing on the people and money behind five recent studies,ย PAI‘s report sitsย within a much broader universe of research in its Frackademia Guide. The new report serves as an update of its February 2015 report titled, โ€œFrackademia in Depth,โ€ a title poking fun at hydraulic fracturing (โ€œfrackingโ€) front group Energy in Depthย (which did not react kindly to itsย report).

As PAI points out in the new report’s introduction, the results of many recent science studies (some funded by the industry) have tarnished the reputation the industry spends so much money aiming to keep shiny. These include studies on fracking’sย climate impactsย andย health impacts, environmental justice issues associated with fracking, amongย others.

Given that backdrop, the oil and gas industry has swept in and funded fresh studies whose outcomes were more favorable โ€” aka โ€œfrackademiaโ€ โ€” on topics ranging from fracking’s groundwater impacts, environmental impacts andย economics.ย 

Rick Berman, Timย Considine

Among the most compelling findings in the PAI investigation is that Rick โ€œDr. Evilโ€ Berman, infamous for creating industry-funded front groups in many policy arenas via his consulting company Berman & Company, has gotten into theย frackademiaย game.

The Berman connection becomes clear when investigating the men behind the curtain of a study published in September 2014 titled, โ€œEconomic and Environmental Impacts of Oil and Gas Development Offshore the Delmarva, Carolinas, and Georgia,โ€ which makes the case for offshore drilling in the Atlantic. As PAI explained, it was funded by Interstate Policy Alliance, โ€œa project of the Employment Policiesย Institute.โ€

What’sย Employment Policies Institute? Aย Berman & Company front group.ย ย 

โ€œThough Berman and Company does not disclose the identities of its clients, the firm and its network of front groups have recently begun attacking fracking opponents and climate change regulations, suggesting it has been retained by the oil and gas industry,โ€ explained PAI.


view this map onย LittleSis

Just as important as Berman, in this case, was the author:ย Timothy Considine.ย Considine has been embroiled in other frackademia scandals,ย including a 2010 study eventually retracted and reissued by Penn State University after it was revealed that he didn’t disclose its funder, the Marcellus Shale Coalition lobbyingย organization.

He’s actually featured twice in the PAI report. The other recent Considine frackademia example came in the form of a study titled,ย โ€œThe Economics Impacts of the Proposed Natural Gas Severance Tax in Pennsylvania,โ€ funded by the American Petroleum Institute.ย 

That report predicted brutal impacts for Pennsylvania’s economy if its legislature adopts a severance tax for those fracking in the state’s Marcellus Shale.ย 

Harvard,ย Syracuse

Harvard Business School and Syracuse University also feature prominently in PAI‘s report.ย The Harvard Business School example, in particular, serves as almost a perfect case study of how frackademia works inย action.ย 

โ€œAmericaโ€™s Unconventional Energy Opportunity,โ€ the title of Harvard’s report published jointly with Boston Consulting Group in June 2015, was featured in an opinion article by The New York Times writer David Brooks and in an uncritical article distributed to newspaper wires worldwide by Reuters.ย ย 

Like a prominent 2013 Environmental Defense Fund-convened study on the climate change impacts of fracking, the steering committee of the Harvard study was a who’s-who of people with industryย ties.ย 

Harvard Business School Fracking Study

Image Credit: Public Accountabilityย Initiative

As PAI pointed out, co-author โ€œDavid Gee, a [Boston Consulting Group] managing partner, has worked for the energy industry for more than 30 years, with stints at Baker Hughes, PG&E, and AESย Corporation.โ€

Another co-author not mentioned in PAI‘s report is Michael Porter, a faculty member of the Harvard Business School and formerly of the Monitor Group, a prominent consulting firm that went out of business in November 2012. Monitor Group has been involved in undisclosed pay-for-play before, conducting de facto shadow public relations work for former Libyan dictatorย Muammar Gaddafi.ย ย 

Energy in Depth also stars in PAI‘s report in the form of a Syracuse University study on fracking and groundwater contamination that served as a counter of sorts to earlier Duke University fracking groundwater contamination studies.ย 

That study was promoted by both EID and Natural Gas Now, the latter often featuring the work ofย Tom Shepstone, a formerย EIDย employeeย and current industry consultant. As it turns out, the study was covertly funded by Chesapeake Energy, though the co-authors claimed they hadย โ€œno competing financial interestโ€ in any entities potentially impacted by the study’s results.ย 

Lead author Donald Siegel โ€œhad failed toย disclose that, in addition to providing the data upon which his conclusionsย were based, oil and gas driller Chesapeake Energy had also funded theย study and paid Siegel directly,โ€ wrote PAI.

โ€œFurther, one of Siegelโ€™s co-authors, Bert Smith, is a former Chesapeake employee who now works for Enviro Clean, a firm that consults for Chesapeake Energy. While Smithโ€™s employment at Enviro Clean was noted when the study was published, the fact that his employer works for Chesapeake Energy wasย not.โ€

On at least one instance, PAI pointed out, Siegel actually wrote an article on EID‘s website.

Tobacco, Climate Denierย Playbook

As highlighted many times in the report, journalists often take press releases from universities and write stories about these studies without following theย money.

โ€œSince the tobacco industry pioneered the use of compromised scientists to sow doubt about the harmful effects of smoking, corporations have employed a complex of industry-funded academic institutes, public relations outfits, lobbying firms, and independent consultants to provide seemingly independent support for their lines of business,โ€ explained PAI.

PAI has done a great public service by naming names and doing the work journalists all too often fail to do to reveal conflicts of interest.
ย 

Photo Credit: Jannis Tobias Werner | Shutterstock

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Steve Horn is the owner of the consultancy Horn Communications & Research Services, which provides public relations, content writing, and investigative research work products to a wide range of nonprofit and for-profit clients across the world. He is an investigative reporter on the climate beat for over a decade and former Research Fellow for DeSmog.

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