Dirty Energy Money Seeps into Academia

[limpyhobbler]

Just as the oil and gas industry buys influence on Capitol Hill and in state capitals across the country, so too can itbuy friends at major universities who support its agenda.

A recent Bloomberg article highlights just how close, and influential, these ties can actually be.

The article details how the Marcellus Shale Coalition, a consortium of about 300 companies promoting natural gas development, provided a grant of $100,000 to researcher Tim Consodine, then at Penn State University. Consodine subsequently penned a 2009 report that argued that companies interested in drilling in Pennsylvania would be turned off by a 5% tax, proposed by then-Governor Ed Rendell.

That report was influential in defeating Governor Rendell’s proposal to charge a 5% levy on the value of natural gas produced, plus another 4.7 cents for every 1000 cubic feet, which would have generated approximately $100 million in its first year alone. Consodine’s report argued that drilling would decline by more than 30% if the tax were in place.
...

http://priceofoil.org/2012/07/25/dirty-energy-money-seeps-into-academia/

[Dustlawyer]

1. You ought to see the Universities lining up for BP money to show how

healthy the Gulf of Mexico is after BP dumped all of that oil, then sprayed all of that Corexit to sink the oil in order to avoid per barrel fines!