At a meeting of the West Virginia Coal Association Friday morning, Kentucky and Ohio industry officials called for answers as to why a natural gas company has been funneling money to groups who are fighting the coal industry on environmental and health grounds.
Bill Bissett, president of the Kentucky Coal Association, spent the last few minutes of his presentation to West Virginia coal miners and industry executives discussing his disgust with Chesapeake Energy for their funding of anti-coal campaigns.
Bissett pointed out that the American Lung Association has come out against the coal and oil industries, but has left the natural gas industry alone. The American Lung Association has received some funding for its Clean Air Initiative from Chesapeake. Scott Rotruck, Chesapeake's vice president of corporate development and state government relations, serves on the American Lung Association board.
After the presentation, Bissett also pointed to $26 million the Sierra Club received from the natural gas industry. Bissett said Chesapeake's action was incredibly inappropriate.
"People need to know where the money comes from," Bissett said during his presentation at the symposium. "But to fund, sort of under the cover of night, a public health organization that supposedly is focused with communicating to the public, when in fact it may have been more drive by market share. I think that's rather insidious, and I hold Chesapeake responsible for this."
In an e-mailed response from Jim Gipson, Chesapeake's director of media relations, he explained Chesapeake's relation to the Sierra Club.
"Back in 2007, Chesapeake and the Sierra Club had a shared interest in moving our nation toward a clean energy future based on the expanded use of natural gas, especially in the power sector," Gipson said. "We mutually agreed in 2010 to end our funding."
Gipson insisted Chesapeake's involvement stemmed from a mutual interest in clean air, and was not necessarily motivated by "market share," as coal industry officials had presented.
"Over the years, Chesapeake has been proud to support a number of organizations that share our interest in clean air and agree that America's abundant supplies of clean natural gas represent the most affordable, available and scalable fuel to power a more prosperous and environmentally responsible future for our country," Gipson said.
According to Time Magazine, most of the funding came from CEO Aubrey McClendon. The Sierra Club wrote a blog post about its relationship with Chesapeake, saying it was no longer in support of the industry because of concerns with hydraulic fracturing.
"It's time to stop thinking of natural gas as a 'kinder, gentler' energy source," Sierra Club's Executive Director Michael Brune wrote. "What's more, we do not have an effective regulatory system in this country to address the risks that gas drilling poses on our health and communities. The scope of the problems from under-regulated drilling, as well as a clearer understanding of the total carbon pollution that results from both drilling and burning gas, have made it plain that, as we phase out coal, we need to leapfrog over gas whenever possible in favor of truly clean energy."
Bissett said he is used to many in the environmental activist community not like coal, but recognizing its use in the foreseeable future.
"For Chesapeake Energy to do an all-out assault with both the Sierra Club and the American Lung Association, is not only insidious, but it's clandestine," Bissett said. "That's what's patently offensive."
Bissett, the Kentucky Coal president and former communications director at Marshall University, said he wanted to be clear that he took issue with the actions of Chesapeake, not the gas industry as a whole.
"We have a very good relationship with the natural gas industry," Bissett said. "In Kentucky, we're actually doing a legislative reception with them, partnering on Feb. 16. My concern is not with the natural gas industry. It's with a singular company that's financing groups whose mission is to end coal production, yet doing it under cover of night."
"I think the public needs to know when they hear information from the Sierra Club, or the American Lung Association, this is the natural gas industry talking."
The Sierra Club's initiative was known as "Beyond Coal." At the beginning of that campaign, Brune wrote on the Sierra Club blog, natural gas was viewed as a bridge fuel between coal and renewable energies, based on the "best science" available at that time.
"By mid-August 2010, with gas industry practices and our policies increasingly in conflict, I recommended to the board, and it agreed, to end the funding relationship between the club and the gas industry, and all fossil fuel companies or executives," Brune wrote.
Brune said the Sierra Club will continue to fight to replace coal with clean energy sources, using as little gas as possible, and with responsibly extracted gas where necessary.
"It's time to stop thinking of natural gas as a 'kinder, gentler' energy source," Brune wrote. "What's more, we do not have an effective regulatory system in this country to address the risks that gas drilling poses on our health and communities."
Brune said exempting natural gas from environmental protections was a "terrible idea" that looks even dumber today.
Bissett said Chesapeake should have been more "honest and forthright in their message and that their actions were the sort that 'hurt companies long-term.'" He said he was proud of the "Friends of Coal" campaign, who has been forthcoming with who funds it and is behind the group's messages.
"I think they really need to take a long look at their direction as a company," Bissett said. "As this kind of secretive attempt to move public opinion under the guise of either environmentalism or health, is not in their long term best interest."
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