Sierra Club's Pro-Gas Dilemma
National Group's Stance Angers On-the-Ground Environmentalists in
Several States
The Wall Street Journal
21 December 2009
By Ben Casselman
LIVERPOOL, N.Y. -- When energy companies began preparations to drill
for natural gas in upstate New York last year, the local Sierra Club
quickly organized against them.
The group's New York chapter demanded studies on the environmental
risks, pushed for stricter regulations and called for a statewide ban
on most gas drilling. The drilling hasn't begun as the state works to
develop regulations.
It would have been a typical story of environmentalists battling
industry, except for one thing: The national Sierra Club is one of
natural gas's biggest boosters.
Carl Pope, the Sierra Club's executive director, has traveled the
country promoting natural gas's environmental benefits, sometimes
alongside Aubrey McClendon, chief executive of Chesapeake Energy Corp.,
one of the biggest U.S. gas companies by production.
The national group's pro-gas stance has angered on-the-ground
environmentalists in several states who say their concerns are being
marginalized.
"It makes us look like the extremists that the industry wants to call
us anyway," said Beth Little, a board member of the Sierra Club's West
Virginia chapter, which is more skeptical about drilling than the
national organization.
The rift in the Sierra Club, one of the country's oldest and most
prominent conservation groups, highlights deep divisions in the broader
environmental community over natural gas. And pressure from local
activists is forcing some major environmental groups to revisit their
positions on drilling.
Some activists, such as Mr. Pope, believe increased drilling -- with
appropriate safeguards -- is the best way to wean the U.S. off coal,
which they see as the greater environmental threat.
Others, many of them in areas affected by drilling, see potential risks
-- air pollution, increased water use and soil and water contamination
-- as too high.
"It's been an at-times rancorous debate in the environmental
community," said Bruce Baizel, an attorney for Earthworks, a national
environmental group focused on energy issues.
That debate will likely grow more heated following Exxon Mobil Corp.'s
announcement last week that it is buying XTO Energy Inc. The deal will
make Exxon, already a significant target of environmentalists, into the
country's biggest natural-gas producer.
The industry has made the environmental benefits of gas a centerpiece
of an $80 million lobbying effort that aims to promote increased use of
gas to generate electricity and fuel cars and trucks. Burning natural
gas releases about half as much carbon dioxide as burning coal to
produce the same amount of energy and also emits far fewer smog-causing
gases such as nitrogen oxide.
National groups such as the Sierra Club, the Environmental Defense Fund
and the Natural Resources Defense Council have backed natural gas as a
so-called bridge fuel that can help the country move away from coal and
oil without waiting for renewable sources of energy, such as wind and
solar power, to catch up.
The support of environmental groups has helped the industry win key
backers in Congress, where a bipartisan "Congressional Natural Gas
Caucus" formed this year.
But local opposition presents a challenge to the coalition. Grassroots
groups have sprung up across the country to raise environmental
concerns, particularly about the alleged risk of drinking-water
contamination from hydraulic fracturing, a process in which large
volumes of chemical-laced water are injected down wells to release gas
trapped in underground rock formations.
Companies say that their drilling practices, including hydraulic
fracturing, are safe, and that existing regulations are sufficient.
There have been few independent studies to assess how widespread
problems are.
"There are legitimate questions, and they can be answered
legitimately," said Mr. McClendon, Chesapeake's CEO. "I feel we're on
the right side of history here."
The pressure from local environmentalists appears to be having an
impact. The Natural Resources Defense Council is now pushing for
stricter regulation of drilling, the Environmental Defense Fund is
working with companies to encourage them to adopt stronger
environmental safeguards, and the Sierra Club has formed a task force
to draft a policy on hydraulic fracturing.
James Marston, director of the Environmental Defense Fund's energy
program, said the pros and cons of increased natural-gas use have
turned out to be "more complicated than some of the early reports"
indicated.
Concern appears to be growing in Congress, too, about the environmental
impact of drilling. A House bill to regulate hydraulic fracturing has
drawn 49 co-sponsors, and a companion bill has been introduced in the
Senate.
Exxon is sufficiently concerned about the legislation that its merger
agreement with XTO allows the company to back out of the deal if
Congress makes hydraulic fracturing illegal or "commercially
impracticable."
The grassroots opposition the industry faces was on display here on a
recent Tuesday afternoon, when more than 50 people filled the community
room of the public library in this town of 2,500 just outside of
Syracuse, N.Y. As local environmental leaders talked about the
thousands of acres of local land that had been leased for drilling,
Syracuse resident Larry Paul shook his head.
"I don't trust the industry," Mr. Paul said after the meeting. "This is
a disaster waiting to happen."
Still, Mr. Pope, of the national Sierra Club, said many of the same
people who complain about drilling are using oil, gas and coal produced
elsewhere -- often at a greater environmental cost.
"Will the 20% of the membership that happens to live in places where
drilling is happening be unhappy?" he asked. "I'm sure that's true."
Write to Ben Casselman at ben.casselman@wsj.com