McClendon: Chesapeake done with Sierra Club
Chesapeake Energy Corp. is done with the Sierra Club.
CEO Aubrey McClendon was questioned by the president of the National Center for Public Policy Research about the company’s past donations totaling $26 million to the environmental group at Friday’s annual meeting.
Center President David Ridenour said he was concerned the Sierra Club would use those funds in its new “Beyond Natural Gas” campaign.
McClendon said he has no regrets about working with the Sierra Club to go after the coal industry.
“We’re in a market share struggle with coal,” McClendon said. “As a result of that campaign, 150 new coal plants were not built. That demand will go to natural gas.”
The Sierra Club distanced itself from Chesapeake earlier this year after new executive director Michael Brune rewrote the group’s gift acceptance policy and began to campaign for tougher regulation of the natural gas industry.
On Friday, McClendon said Chesapeake is no longer associated with the Sierra Club.
“Our relationship with them is a little different today than it was a few years ago,” he said.
Ridenour said he was not satisfied to McClendon’s response to his question at Friday’s meeting.
“Mr. McClendon largely ignored my question, ‘By funding Beyond Coal, did you not unnecessarily pick a fight with another fossil fuel industry that now will have every incentive to fund Beyond Natural Gas? It would be darkly amusing if the coal industry did turn out to be funding Beyond Natural Gas, and did have a stipulation in its grant contract limiting the use of the gift to fighting Mr. McClendon’s industry.”
“Since the Sierra Club has been used as a corporate tool in the past, there is no reason to believe that it isn’t being used as one now, so we call upon it to fully disclose who is underwriting Beyond Natural Gas. If the Sierra Club won’t say who is funding its anti-natural gas campaign, we probably can assume there is a conflict of interest in there somewhere.”
“As a representative of a Chesapeake shareholder and an employee of another shareholder, I’m not thrilled that Mr. McClendon gave money to an activist group dedicated to the company’s destruction, but I’m even less happy as an American. Energy independence is important to national security, and low-cost energy is important to American jobs and prosperity. We shouldn’t be fighting things that are good for us.”
Ridenour said he still hopes to find out where Chesapeake’s donations to the Sierra Club went, while letting such groups know that people are watching those types of charitable contributions.
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Comments
I remember that ugly campaign, with yes, NEWSOK full page ads, sponsored by the anti-coal coalition, whoever they were. They kept saying “dirty coal”. Sure, when you compare only the combustion of coal vs nat gas, it is easy to say how clean NG is. Now,when you look at the whole production chain, we are wondering just how clean is natural gas, when you consider the production water that must be disposed of, down hole, and the exclusions that waste drilling mud enjoy from the hazardous waster federal regs. Consider the emissions from the compressor engines, drilling engines, methane escaping during well completion, the miles of pipeline, the one day abandoned gas wells when inclination curves play out. I believe it was a mistake for chk to fund the sierra club campaign. Now, the sierra club is teaming up with other groups to go after fracking.
There is only one way to put a stop to this sort of thing: the complete separation of state and economy, in the same manner and for the same reasons as the separation of church and state.
Beware of easy money! The secret to Aubrey’s success has been “drill baby drill”, with other people’s money. Well now what? CHK has drilled OK and TX to death. It’s difficult now to walk out our front door without seeing a pump or an abandoned pad. For what, a fancy campus, a few gifts to charities and a new arena. Money is fleeting, our legacy to our children is precious. Now that we’re learning of the financial consequences, I’m afraid the next revelation will be the ecological consequences.
Much like a ponzi scheme, CHK has to drill in order to maintain cashflow – new money in to pay creditors on the way out. Now he’s rumored to be courting the Chinese. You have to be kidding me! Are you ready OK for the “sickle and hammer” flapping in the OK wind on top of drilling rigs? I know THEY don’t care about groundwater contamination in OK.
Here’s a good shareholder question, has CHK ever had a bond repaid at maturity? And I would start asking the defenders who plead how charitable Aubrey has been, how they have benefited from his riches? Have you seen them around the floor at the CHK Center? Just asking…