Marcellus Shale Coalition

Most people think of downtown Houston, Texas as ground zero for the oil and gas industry. Houston, after all, serves as home base for corporate headquarters of oil and gas giants, including the likes of BP America, ConocoPhillips, and Shell Oil Company, to name a few.

Comparably speaking, few would think of Wilmington, Delaware in a similar vein. But perhaps they should, according to a recent New York Times investigative report by Leslie Wayne.

Wayne's story revealed that Delaware serves as what journalist Nicholas Shaxson calls a "Treasure Island" in his recent book by that namesake. It's an "onshore tax haven" and an even more robust one than the Caymen Islands, to boot.

The Delaware "Island" is heavily utilized by oil and gas majors, all of which are part of the "two-thirds of the Fortune 500" corporations parking their money in The First State.

“Delaware is an outlier in the way it does business,” David Brunori, a professor at George Washington Law School told The Times. “What it offers is an opportunity to game the system and do it legally.”

The numbers are astounding. "Over the last decade, the Delaware loophole has enabled corporations to reduce the taxes paid to other states by an estimated $9.5 billion," Wayne wrote. 

"More than 900,000 business entities choose Delaware as a location to incorporate," explained another report. "The number...exceeds Delaware's human population of 850,000."

A report released today by Food and Water Watch (FWW) titled, "Exposing the Oil and Gas Industry’s False Jobs Promise for Shale Gas Development: How Methodological Flaws Grossly Exaggerate Jobs Projections," exposes one of the key lies at the heart of the domestic oil and gas debate in the United States -- inflated jobs potential.

“The oil and gas industry has tried to stand on three legs, claiming that shale gas is good for the environment, good for American energy security and good for the economy. The first two legs have already been kicked out, and our new analysis kicks out the third,” said Food & Water Watch Executive Director Wenonah Hauter in a press release. “They have no legs left to stand on.”

Jobs Numbers Hugely Overestimated

FWW's study hones in on the arguments made in the July 2011 report written by the Public Policy Institute of New York State (PPINYS), titled, "Drilling for Jobs: What the Marcellus Shale Could Mean for New York." That report concluded that by 2018, the development of 500 new shale gas wells each year in five key counties in the state of New York could create 62,620 new jobs.

The report is often cited in the mainstream media, particularly when attemping to "balance" arguments against fracking in the Marcellus Shale and other shale basins around the United States, namely that it is a dirty fossil fuel with a procurement process that is inherently toxic.

After sifting and winnowing through the scores of methodological flaws found in the PPINYS report, FWW discovered that, contrary to the rosy jobs numbers publicly disseminated, very few jobs will actually be created by drilling in these counties, and PPINYS has grossly over-projected job creation.

Rather than over 62,000 potential jobs, FWW's study shows that only 3,469 jobs would be created -- a stark difference indeed.  

The U.S. EPA is poised to enact the first ever rules on hydraulic fracturing (fracking) with a proposal that would allow the agency to regulate the practice under the Clean Air Act. The Clean Air route was chosen by the agency, as the U.S. Congress prohibited their attempts to regulate the practice of fracking under the Clean Water Act in 2005.

From Raw Story:

A new poll suggests that Pennsylvanians are supportive of unconventional gas drilling in their state. Not because it is safe, but because they are convinced the economic benefits outweigh the risks to public health, water supplies and the environment. This kind of reasoning indicates that gas industry rhetoric is having an impact: advertise the benefits, downplay the risks, convince people that you know what you’re doing and there’s nothing to worry about.

And this is just what the industry has done. 

According to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Pennsylvanians are a receptive audience to the extensive public relations campaigns waged by gas interests to confuse the public on the contentious issue of unconventional gas drilling. Between Exxon Mobil’s commercials, Chesapeake Energy’s first-person testimonials from “true Pennsylvanians,” and the Pennsylvania Independent Oil and Gas Association’s billboards lining the highway, industry is leaving no public opinion stone unturned.