Exxon and T. Boone Pickens are spending billions on an aggressive push into natural gas. Millions have gone into ads and congressional donations. T. Boone Pickens has helped to write bills in both House and Senate, and has enlisted the Sierra Club's Karl Pope as a traveling pitchman. The oil industry is not ceding control of energy policy. What does this mean for the future of a renewable energy and the environment?

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Will natural gas be the bridge fuel to the future or a road block for renewables?

No wonder the unemployed can't find work in a new Green economy: the jobs haven't arrived yet. They're stalled somewhere in Washington, DC.

Major industries have balked at making "green tech" investments, in part because Congress, the Obama administration and some national environmental organizations are now sending mixed messages.

The Los Angeles Times reports that the hesitation to invest in green technology by major industries comes because of "a lack of certainty" from Congress and the Obama Administration.(http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-energy-invest22-2010feb22,0,1993754.story)

Echoing this sentiment from the environmentalist side, a recent article in The Nation by Johann Hari slams big environmental groups for taking money from polluting industries and then softening their stances on a wide range of environmental legislation. Hari claims this strategy by Big Green groups like the Sierra Club has baffled followers and misdirected legislative initiatives.(http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100322/hari)

Put into earthier terms, while Congress and these mainstream environmental groups flirt with "green," they haven't yet given up on their love of fossil fuels, and the oil and gas companies are certainly spending lots of money to make sure they don't. At risk are the chances for success of a coherent national policy on renewable energy. Indeed, the positions now staked out over natural gas vividly illustrate this dilemma.

Petroleum companies are now making an aggressive push into natural gas. In doing so, they have taken on a new set of allies: big national liberal and environmental organizations. The Sierra Club's Karl Pope has recently barnstormed around the country with oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens, extolling the virtues of natural gas in public forums. They say it burns cleaner than coal, which is true, and then add, hopefully, that it will lessen our dependence on foreign oil.

On the other side, people damaged by natural gas exploration in the Mountain West feel a sharp sense of betrayal at the hijacking of the "green economy" by old school petroleum companies in cahoots with people and groups who they had previously viewed as allies. They point out that industry claims of how clean natural gas burns are overwhelmed by the problems natural gas drilling creates.

Western ranchers and landowners from Montana to New Mexico have watched their water wells dry up or become poisoned, seen their range land and natural grasses killed off, their wildlife decimated, and their formerly pristine air now subject to regular ozone alerts. http://www.1000voicesarchive.org/video/149/George-Smith-1000_Voices-Sheridan-WY

But, now the lonesome cowboys on the range have some companions in their misery. Natural gas has been discovered in large deposits in New York and Pennsylvania.

On Feb. 22, 2010, a group of activists recently disrupted the CEO of Chesapeake Energy as he delivered a lecture at Harvard entitled "Natural Gas: Fueling America's Clean Energy Future." Despite the Ivy League surroundings, the executive, Aubrey McClendon, left the event earlier than scheduled following a series of pointed questions and jeers from the audience over the impact of gas wells and "hydraulic fracturing" atop the clean drinking water supply for New York and Pennsylvania. Most significantly, this event and the surrounding growth of local grass-roots opposition indicate how a bitter conflict from the sparsely populated West has now moved into the more densely populated East.

The oil industry is staking a lot of money on natural gas. Exxon Mobile recently announced intentions to a buy natural gas company, XTO for $29 billion. Exxon wants XTO's extensive leases on the natural gas deposits under the Marcellus Shale in up-state New York and Pennsylvania. Since natural gas burns cleaner than coal or conventional gas Exxon may see this as an opportunity to earn both money and "green" credentials without having to change its core business. Enabling such a view, environmental groups such as the Sierra Club and the Environmental Defense Fund, along with Democrats like Colorado's former US Senator, Tim Wirth, back natural gas as a "bridge fuel" - an alternative to coal.

But this "bridge" could lead to brand new environmental hazards that cannot be derided as minor NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) aggravations.

Here's why: Traditionally, natural gas comes up a well from a pool below the surface. However, the gas reserves now pursued by Exxon and others are trapped in shale rock, coal deposits, and other tricky geological structures making extraction more difficult.

How to get gas out of shale? Blast it with an ocean of chemically laced water. This method called "hydraulic fracturing" has been developed to get this gas out of shale and "tight sands." This method carries enormous hazard, and proceeds with little or no oversight. The drillers say they carefully cap the well so the chemicals don't come back up. But, the trouble is, according to the Powder River Basin Resource Council in Wyoming (www.powderriverbasin.org), the chemically laced water blasted down the well doesn't stop moving once the gas comes up. The chemical cocktail keeps migrating.

Some of the "lab rats" in this petroleum experiment can be found in the sparsely populated state of Wyoming, near Clark and Pavillion, site of "hydraulic fracturing" or "fracking" during the last six years. Pavillion is now a potential super-fund site, and both places have seen massive ground water pollution, along with respiratory illness, cancer, and neurological disorders among the nearby residents. Oil companies would point out that it is yet unproven that chemicals from "fracking" caused this sudden spike in serious health issues. But, the coincidence of blown out "fracking" wells and increased health problems in the pristine reaches of rural Wyoming on the eastern boundary of Yellowstone National Park, might give one pause for thought.

Wyoming ranchers look at the Exxon acquisition, the T. Boone Pickens Tour, and the weird marriage between some environmental groups and the forces of anti-regulation and see both a massive potential threat for ground water pollution and property encroachment not seen since the Indians lost their lands to the cavalry. From their point of view, one powerful polluting industry is being favored at their enormous personal, environmental and economic expense. They insist that rosy presentation of "cleaner burning" natural gas ignores and excludes accounting for enormous negative impacts of its extraction.

Nationally, powerful forces are lined up to support expanded natural gas, which threatens to drain the money and momentum out of the efforts to establish renewable energy. And, in the process, leave these cowboys as the poster children for environmental injustice.

Loads of "green" public relations from oil companies have already been trucked up to Capitol Hill in the quest for subsidies, tax breaks and most importantly minimal regulation of natural gas. Hearings extolling the virtues of Natural Gas were held this fall in front of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

T. Boone Pickens and the industry are now spending millions on a PR blitz for natural gas according to the New York Times.

Pickens has also helped write two bills now pending in Congress that would grant large tax subsidies to natural gas vehicles and to a network of new filling-stations. The House version, HR 1835, sponsored by Rep. Boren of Oklahoma, would require the federal government to power 50% of its vehicle fleet with natural gas by 2014. The Senate companion version, which was presented by Sen. Harry Reid with Mr. Pickens standing next to him, doesn't include the fleet provision but keeps the tax subsidies. These massive subsidies could not help but have an impact on competing, more renewable energy sources like solar and wind. Government incentives will give one the competitive edge.

At the core of this clash lies the fate of "fracking" in natural gas wells. If this issue ever gets to the floor of Congress, the marriage between some "green" elements and the oil companies may get even weirder.

Presently, hydraulic fracturing is completely outside any regulation pertaining to the danger of the chemicals. The chemical solutions used in the "fracking" water, made by companies like Haliburton and Schlumberger, are protected trade secrets thanks to Bush-era rulings on proprietary confidentiality. Back when it was merely a few hundred thousand ranchers and residents whose way of life was being ruined in Wyoming, Colorado and the Mountain West, they got away with it. Will the same be true when it reaches the Marcellus Shale that sits atop the water supply of millions in New York City? Is the Sierra Club going to lobby on behalf of the "Haliburton exception" to the Clean Water Act? Concern about these methods caused Rep. Henry Waxman's House Energy Committee to hold a recent hearing on "fracking."

And the backlash against Big Green over their garbled message has started in earnest. The Nation carries an article (http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100322/hari ) by Johann Hari that attacks "Big Green" for conflict of interest by allegedly taking money from polluting industries like coal, gas and chemical manufacturers in return for "cover" on a range of issues, and a duplicitous role in climate and pollution legislation.

Clearly, oil companies want "fracking" to remain outside the scope of any regulations. In Security and Exchange Commission filings, Exxon reserves the right to back out of their $29 billion XTO deal if Congress or the Federal government steps in to regulate hydraulic fracturing.

Opponents of hydraulic fracturing have legislation of their own pending in Congress. First is the House bill (H.R. 2766) from Reps. Degette (D-CO) and Hinchey (D-NY) and one in the Senate (S.1215) sponsored by Senators, Schumer, (D-NY) and Casey (D-PA). Support for the "Fracking" regulations comes from grassroots environmental and agricultural groups like the Oil and Gas Accountability Project, Powder River Basin, and local agricultural and environmental groups in New York, Pennsylvania, Colorado.

Sacrificing a greener economy will not be the only consequence of this push for natural gas. While many environmental issues seem abstract and distant, the boom in drilling for natural gas will get the attention of home and landowners across America, including suburban Fort Worth, Texas.

If a landowner doesn't control the mineral rights under their house, land, or farm, then the landowner has little ability to stop an oil company from drilling on their land, building roads, laying pipe-lines, erecting tanks, compressor stations, and infrastructure they deem necessary to access their "mineral rights", even if those mineral rights are on your doorstep. How far gas drillers will take their present legal ability is on display in the Powder River Basin in Wyoming where life-long, conservative Republican ranchers now refer to their home region as "an area of national sacrifice."

Perhaps the "clean burning" promise of natural gas can be partially realized, but not without vastly stricter regulation and a thorough analysis of every step of the extraction process. And should the present oil industry campaign, aided by some big environmental groups be allowed to derail the development of a renewable energy industry? As of now, the billions of dollars at stake make this "bridge fuel" pretty shaky to cross.

(Todd Darling is a Los Angeles based documentary filmmaker. To hear Wyoming ranchers and their experience with natural gas exploration go to: www.asnowmobileforgeorge.com

Authors Bio:
Todd Darling is a Los Angeles based filmmaker. His documentary "A Snow Mobile for George" looks at the impact of environmental de-regulation upon individuals. Shot during a cross-country trip, the film tells the stories of Yurok salmon fishermen on the Klamath River, ranchers in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming, firemen and paramedics in New York City, and his family's two-stroke snowmobile. The film was named one of "The Top Ten Environmental Documentaries of 2009" by Mother Nature Network, and has appeared in a dozen film festivals.
In June of 2009, the Los Angeles Times ran an op-ed piece he wrote about the Carbon Trading provisions in the Climate Control legislation passed by the House passed in 2009.

His television credits include directing on three seasons of the MTV show, "Laguna Beach: The Real OC"; executive producer of "Saviors of the Forest" (PBS); and Director of "High Tech Families" (PBS) and "Año Nuevo" (PBS).