Fracking op-ed was signed by public officials, but penned by big oil
With its Republican legislative allies facing criticism that they had robbed a North Texas town of its powers, the oil and gas industry settled on a PR move in late May that fought fire with fire: enlist local officials from a handful of Texas communities to lend their names to an opinion piece praising the new, high-profile law that quashed a North Texas town’s ban on fracking.
In the opinion piece, versions of which have appeared in at least seven newspapers, including the San Antonio Express-News and the American-Statesman, officials from Karnes City, Pleasanton, Midland and Lubbock argue that, with the recently signed law, “lawmakers got it right by relying on fact-based information to develop a balanced solution for Texas.”
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Through a public information request, the Statesman learned that the opinion piece was shopped around by the Joint Association Education Initiative, which is paid for by oil and gas associations and producers.
The Joint Association’s work is paid for by the Texas Oil and Gas Association, the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers, the Texas Pipeline Association and a handful of other associations and nonprofits.
Gretchen Fox, who runs a PR agency that represents the Texas Oil and Gas Association and puts together the Joint Association materials, said in an interview that she had written the opinion piece.
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