Chesapeake "Declaration of Energy Independence": NAT GAS Act Embodied

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This article has been cross-posted with permission of the Center for Media and Democracyโ€™s PR Watch.

On July 11, Chesapeake Energy, the second largest methane gasย corporation in the United States, announced itsย  โ€œbold new planโ€: a โ€œDeclaration of Energy Independenceโ€ for Americaโ€™s energy future. (โ€œNatural gasโ€ is the public relations term the industry uses for methane gas, because it sounds so much more appealing than the realย name.)

The plan is double-pronged and will no doubt lead to increased levels of fracking, the process drilling companies use to extract methane gas in areas like the Marcellus Shale and other shale deposits throughout the country. Fracking is a dirty process, as covered in-depth by DeSmogBlog in an April 2011 report titled, โ€œFracking the Future: How Unconventional Gas Threatens our Water, Health, andย Climate.โ€

First, Chesapeake will pour $150 million into Clean Energy Fuels Corporation (CEF). Energy tycoon and hedge fund manager T. Boone Pickens sits on CEFโ€™s Board of Directors and owns a 41 percent stake, according to the companyโ€™s March, 2011 10-Q filing. That money will go toward funding methane gas fueling stations along federal highways spanning theย country.

Second, Chesapeake has purchased a $155 million, 50 percent stake in Sundrop Fuels, Inc.ย  Chesapeakeโ€™s CEO, Aubrey McClendon, is also the CEO of Sundrop Fuels.

While superficially a โ€œbold new plan,โ€ the reality is that the plan serves merely as the embodiment of the vision outlined inย House Resolution 1380, the NAT GAS Act of 2011 (New Alternative Transportation to Give Americans Solutions Act of 2011), with all of the same key players still in the fold.

Through the introduction of major federal-level legislation, the foundation of the plan has already been laid and now the vision is slowly but surely becoming aย reality.

NAT GAS Act Rejoinder: Written By and For Methane Gas Industryย Insiders

The NAT GAS Act currently has 183 co-sponsors representing both major political parties and calls for the creation of a new national liquefied and compressed methane gas infrastructure, while offering tax creditsย  โ€“ also known as corporate welfare โ€“ to both methane gas fueling stations, and owners of vehicles that utilize methane gas, throughย 2016.ย 

The most important parallel between the bill and the Chesapeake announcement is the fact that the money Chesapeake poured into Clean Energy Fuels (CEF) will go toward the building of fueling stations along national highways for trucks, and under the dictates of the bill, the larger the vehicle, the more tax credits itย receives.

โ€œThis is a prime example of industry in cahoots with government for personal gain to a few,โ€ says Maura Stephens, a co-founder of the Coalition to Protect New York, which is currently fighting for a statewide ban on fracking.ย โ€œBy crafting this โ€˜NAT GASโ€™ Act โ€“- also known as the โ€˜Pickens Plan,โ€™ Pickens and his allies are manufacturing a โ€˜needโ€™ where there was none. They stand to gain billions at a time when the dangers to water, air, soil, food supplies, and peopleโ€™s health of โ€˜frackingโ€™ for โ€˜naturalโ€™ gas are being exposed daily. It would be imprudent, at best, to push for such a practice to become even more widespread. But Pickens seems to have Congress wrapped around his little finger and the media donโ€™t questionย him.โ€

Though publicly unveiled in April, the bill still sits in various Congressional Committees and has been stalled since April 6, according to the Library of Congressโ€™ website. This makesย Chesapeakeโ€™s announcement even more timely and crucial, particularly since Pickens, McClendon, and the entities with which both men are affiliated, served as key behind-the-scenes lobbyists (and likely bill writers), as well as public spokespeople, for the NAT GASย Act.

As written on PRWatch back in April:

The firstโ€ฆentities to break the story (about the NAT GAS ACT) are all, as will be seen, in some way, shape and form, well-connected to Pickens:โ€ฆNatural Gas Vehicles for America (NGVA),โ€ฆthe American Natural Gas Alliance (ANGA),โ€ฆ[and] Clean Energy Fuels (CEF). Allโ€ฆoriginally broke the story before the bill was publiclyย available.

ANGA [is an industry lobbying firm that] consists of all of methaneโ€™s key players, including Cabot Oil and Gas, Chesapeake Energy, Seneca Resources, and EQT, amongย othersโ€ฆ

NGVA, on the other hand, is called a โ€œpeer group partnerโ€ of the so-called โ€œAmerican Clean Skies Foundation.โ€ NGVA has a programming agreement through the Foundationโ€™s public relations channel, Clean Skies TV Network, and the Foundation is fundedย byโ€ฆMcClendonโ€ฆ

CEF is another โ€œpeer group partnerโ€ of the American Clean Skies Foundation that has a programming agreement with Clean Skies TV Networkโ€ฆThe President and CEO of CEF, Andrew J. Littlefair, according to his biography on their website, is also the President of NGVA (He is now Immediate Past Chair, according to the NGVA website). According to that same biography, he formerly served as President of Pickens Fuel Corporation (which was formerly Mesa Petroleum). A glance at the American Clean Skies Foundation webpage shows that he also sits on the Board of Directors withย McClendon.

Pickens Fuel Corporation is the predecessor of CEF, which Littlefair co-founded in 1997 with Pickens. It was reincorporated as CEF in 2001. CEF dedicated its first Liquefied Natural Gas plant to Pickens in May 2006, according to its website. The plant is called the โ€œPickensย Plant.โ€โ€ฆ

An e-mail exchange with the Editorial Director of School Transporation News (STN) and the author of STNโ€™s article on the Houseโ€™ introduction of the NAT GAS Act, John Gray, confirms that he had not yet seen a copy of the legislation when he wrote his article, but was first flagged about it via a direct contact from a representative from the NGVA. Gray predicts that NGVA โ€œwere likely key authors of the legislation. My hunch is that they helped write it. Standard procedure in DC. They are aย lobby.โ€

In addition to the information gathered in April, Chesapeake is also listed as a member company on the NGVA website, and its Senior Vice President, Tom Price, sits on the Board of Directors of the NGVA and the Clean Skies Foundation.

Furthermore, Pickens was the original head of NGVA, which formerly publicly went by the name Natural Gas Vehicle Coalition, the name it still registers under for lobbying purposes, according to the Center for Responsive Politicsโ€™ Open Secretsย lobbyingย database.

Pickens and Littlefair are also both on the Board of Directors of the T. Boone Pickensย Foundation.

Pickens, McClendon, Littlefair, the Self-Enriching Trifecta, Make the โ€œDeclaration of Independenceโ€ Media Rounds โ€“ Legislative Pushย Next?

NAT GAS Act Profiteers

Unsurprisingly, these same intertwined key players have again made the media rounds for the โ€œDeclaration of Independenceโ€ announcement, which would fatten their wallets at the expense of theย environment.ย 

On the day of the announcement, for example, Pickens made appearances on MSNBCโ€™s โ€œMorning Joe with Joe Scarborough and on Bloomberg TV, McClendon and Chesapeake sponsored an โ€œEnergy Breakfast Briefingโ€ that was co-hosted by Politico, and also was a guest on CNBC and Bloomberg TV, and Littlefair was also a guest on CNBCโ€™s Mad Money with Jim Cramer.

With the vital public relations, legislative, economic, and physical groundwork now in place, the next thing to ponder is when the next step in the legislative push will occur on Capitolย Hill.

A phone interview with a staff member of the billโ€™s sponsor, U.S. Rep. John Sullivan (R-Oklahoma), suggested that it could come sometime this fall, perhaps after the summer recess, as debt ceiling talks have stalled other items on the legislative agenda. A phone conversation with the head lobbyist for NGVA, Paul Kerkhoven, confirmed thisย plan.

All signs, then, point to sooner, rather thanย later.

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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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