The Incredible Advertising and Public Relations Campaign of the Natural Gas Industry

CBS “Sunday Morning” today carried a commercial from “energyfromshale.org” saying that Williamsport, PA, is much better because of the new natural gas drilling and fracking activities in the area.  Here is an example of the message from their web-site:

In towns across America, like Williamsport, PA, people are experiencing the benefits of shale energy.  New jobs.  Renewed hope.  They’re also asking questions, like “How are you protecting our water?”  The energy industry is answering these questions with facts.  Like the fact that we encase our wells in multiple layers of steel and cement.  And that we monitor and test as we drill for oil and natural gas.  These questions and answers are important.  Because we know success in a town like Williamsport means success for us all.

However, another web-site entitled “usclimateactionnow.org” has a different message, namely:  Gas industry sponsored ads sometimes show an intent, inquisitive, blond-haired toddler crouched on a patch of perfect, green grass; he is peering through a big magnifying glass, directing his sight into the earth. His background is a pleasant, out-of-focus expanse of green leaves.

The headline reads: “WHERE IS AMERICA FINDING MORE THAN A CENTURY’S WORTH OF CLEAN, DOMESTIC ENERGY?” The answer, placed below the large picture of the toddler, is stated as “RIGHT BENEATH OUR FEET.” Additional text asserts: “technology has improved”, “safely recover”, “practices employed to protect the environment”, “transform America’s energy security”, “creating jobs and growing the economy”, and “let’s unlock it.”

Here is the question: HOW IS THE IMPEDIMENT TO CLIMATE STABILIZATION POSED BY ADS SUCH AS THIS EFFECTIVELY COUNTERED?   Answers are provided below.

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Resource Insights is a web-site raising questions about the natural gas industry, as an independent source of news on natural resources and the environment, edited by Kurt Cobb.

If you live in the United States and bother to turn on your television, it’s almost impossible to avoid ads telling you that natural gas from shale is both abundant and environmentally safe to develop. In these ads, so many happy people seem to enjoy burning natural gas that it would be difficult to imagine that their smiles might come to a premature end.

Though the ads will probably not be withdrawn, the emerging facts run counter to the gleeful tone of this television commercial produced by America’s Natural Gas Alliance, a consortium of shale gas drillers.

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Joe Gingerich, editor of The O’Dwyer’s PR Daily, reports that front groups are waging public relations warfare in the fracking debate.  He reports on the real issues and problems involving fracking chemicals, contaminated water supplies, the federal loophole in regulations, human health effects unchecked, and climate change due to the greenhouse gases that are released.

It comes as little surprise then, that natural gas companies now find themselves on the defensive, and are sinking historic sums into PR, marketing, advertising and lobbying efforts to sway citizen opinion and influence legislation. A 2011 Common Cause report found fracking companies have funneled nearly $750 million to lobbyists in the past decade to inspire laws ameliorative to hydraulic fracturing practices.

A bombardment of pro-fracking ad campaigns has followed. A series of commercials funded by ExxonMobil began appearing in 2011: in one, a particularly smug geologist discusses whether fracking can be performed safely. “At ExxonMobil, we know the answer is yes,” he says, aside bustling main street vistas of Everytown, U.S.A. In another series of national print and TV ads (titled “I’m an Energy Voter”), a montage of citizens carefully picked from an assortment of ages and racial varieties repeat the mantra “I vote,” before a repetition of varying subordinate clauses: “for more domestic energy,” “for energy security,” “for energy from all sources.”

This commercial was funded by Energy Citizens, a front group backed by the American Petroleum Institute. One tactic is bussing in hundreds of energy employees to bogus “rallies” created by the group to oppose cap-and-trade legislation. By establishing a perceived public support for fracking, Energy Citizens is able to cast the illusion that its services are a response to interests voiced by the masses.

The O’Dwyer report says further that perhaps no pro-fracking group has been as successful or more influential than Energy in Depth (EDI), a Washington, D.C.-based front group formed by the American Petroleum Institute and the Independent Petroleum Association of America, and funded by BP, Occidental Petroleum, Marathon, Chevron, Shell, Halliburton, El Paso Corporation, and the Ohio Oil and Gas Association.

At a November conference in Houston — titled “Media and Stakeholder Relations: Hydraulic Fracturing Initiative 2011” — EID called on trade groups to engage opponents with a “community approach” that includes a “focus on local concerns” and to remind them of “local opportunities: jobs, revenue, cost-savings.” Handling PR duties for Energy in Depth is FTI Consulting (formerly FD Public Affairs Americas). IPAA is also an FTI client.

At the Houston event, Matt Pitzarella, Spokesman for Pennsylvania energy giant Range Resources, was quoted stating his company is currently employing former military counterinsurgency officers to handle media inquiries, quell citizen concerns and ward off grassroots opposition to hydraulic fracturing in Pennsylvania. “We have several former psyops folks that work for us at Range because they’re very comfortable in dealing with localized issues and local governments,” Pitzarella was quoted saying.

True or not, blogs and Internet discussion forums are now abuzz with the rumor that the U.S. energy industry is hiring psychological warfare experts to perform duties previously reserved for Madison Avenue boardrooms.

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Roger Stone has written a blog on “biggovernment.com” entitled “Energy Independence: Frack We Must.”    He is overlooking the adverse impacts to the environment and our infrastructure as follows:

We must look at the scientific facts before making a policy decision, and the facts about shale gas, when you cut through a great deal of disinformation, are simple. First, it’s less expensive than the fossil fuel alternatives. At $66 per megawatt-hour, natural gas beats the dirtier and more dangerous coal, which costs around $90 per MWh. It even costs less than solar, wind (off and onshore), nuclear, oil and bio-diesel.

And shale gas doesn’t just save money, it saves lives. On average, fifty to sixty coal miners die every year. Every miner must wear artificial breathing apparatus to protect them in case of a disaster, disasters which happen with alarming frequency. Explosions, cave-ins and methane leaks combine to make coal mining the most dangerous job in the United States today.

Tagged as: advertising, climate change, drillilng, environmental impacts, fracking, marcellus shale, natural gas, PR