Whitehall and Corporates collude to decieve public over fracking

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Shale gas executives and government officials have been caught colluding to undermine protests and public resistance to fracking.

E-mails released under freedom of information rules have revealed:

In 2013 officials shared pre-prepared statements with shale gas companies before major announcements and hosted high-level dinners with “further discussion over post-dinner drinks”, while the industry shared long lists of “stakeholders” to be targeted.

The emails, sent throughout 2013, are often chatty, with summer holidays discussed, and in one case the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) apologises to the UK Onshore Operators Group (UKOOG): “Sorry to raise your blood pressure on this subject again, no expletives please!” following a discussion of contentious policy points. In another email, UKOOG’s chief executive, Ken Cronin, tells Duarte Figueira, head of Decc’s office of unconventional gas and oil: “Thanks for a productive meeting (it’s like being set homework).”

Decc emailed what it called “lines to take” to UKOOG before the publication of a review by Public Health England of the potential public health effects of chemical and radioactive pollutants from fracking. One such line was:

“We are confident that there is robust and appropriate regulation in the UK to ensure safe operations that minimise impacts to human health.”

Another email, from the big six energy company Centrica to Decc officials, warned that Lancashire county council was far from convinced about the level of regulation. Centrica, which spent £100m on a 25% share of Cuadrilla’s fracking operation in the county, said:

“The most common theme [of a county council meeting] was that separate onshore regulation is needed of shale, they clearly don’t feel totally comfortable with the current situation/or understand how it will work.”

Centrica also met Decc to discuss “managing national and local stakeholders”, and shared a list of stakeholders, as did IGas, the company facing fracking protests in Salford. In another email, Centrica told Decc it was planning to employ academics to make its case:

“Our polling shows academics are the most trusted sources of information to the public, so we are looking at ways to work with the academic community to present the scientific facts around shale.”

Decc  told Centrica the discussions between the two were “really useful”.

Centrica emailed Decc a figure of 74,000 potential jobs linked to shale gas development, a number later repeated by Cameron and ministers despite Decc’s own study estimating a peak of 16,000 to 32,000 jobs.

The emails also give further details of a dinner in May hosted bythe cabinet secretary, Sir Jeremy Heywood, at which senior civil servants and fracking executives met. The two-hour dinner, at the Preston Marriott, was to be followed by “further discussion over post-dinner drinks”.

Lawrence Carter, from Greenpeace UK, said:

“Decc has again been revealed to be acting as an arm of the gas industry. The government are supposed to represent the interests of the public when they deal with these companies, but the evidence is piling up that they’re all in it together.” British Gas owner Centrica currently has an executive working within Decc on secondment.

Green party MP Caroline Lucas said:

“This is yet more evidence of the creepily cosy relationship between Decc and big energy. Apparently it’s not enough to give fracking companies  generous tax breaks, the government also has to help them with their PR. Instead of cheerleading for fracking, the government should be working with community and renewable energy to move us towards a low carbon future.”

The Haze Says:

Corporate capture at its finest aye readers – a government department paid for by us and tasked with a specific responsibility for tackling climate change spends its time and resources wining and dining gas shale executives, having cosy chats by e-mail, colluding over misleading and irresponsible PR gimmicks and basically working together to ‘manage’ the public hostility to fracking.

This is classic neoliberalism at work.

For protestors and activists we get obscene and wilfully oppressive levels of surveillance and police interference.

The public gets to be deliberately misled by a department that is supposed to be working on its behalf – but for a few select large corporations its taxpayer funded dinners, free staff, free PR consultancy and a green light to do whatever they want.

So its a right wing  police state dystopia for anyone concerned about climate change and a socialist taxpayer funded free ride for the corporations – this is what a neoliberalism is – this is how it works.

Sources include: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jan/17/emails-uk-shale-gas-fracking-opposition