Chesapeake Energy Gp

=ceo mclendon suicide?see bro david lawlerRudy?Pruitt?=<a href="https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/business/article_82fea3a8-9c67-11eb-b6cd-bf6e15ecb66e.html">https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/business/article_82fea3a8-9c67-11eb-b6cd-bf6e15ecb66e.html</a>hmmn chesapeake Energy Corp. is piloting new technology in North Louisiana to monitor methane gas emissions as it looks towards reducing the carbon footprint of its natural gas drilling operations. The company hired Project Canary, a Denver firm that sells emissions monitoring hardware and software. The monitoring system triangulates emissions using several devices at the well site and cost pennies on the dollar, compared to the drones or flyover aircraft with infrared cameras used in the past to detect methane leaks. The self-described "responsibly sourced natural gas" could hold a premium in the market hungry for less carbon intensive and less environmentally destructive methods for energy. "Expectations are increasing across the board," said Brian Miller, vice president of growth and policy at Project Canary. The startup company considers itself the oil and gas equivalent to LEED construction certification which is for buildings which require less energy to operate.In one situation a company used the tools to detect leaks in gaskets which were damaged by overexposure to the sun. The leaks weren't discovered by routine maintenance checks. The pilot project is expected to cover two pads across 10 wells in the Louisiana section of the Haynesville Shale but "the partnership may be expanded based on initial findings and market conditions", according to Chesapeake Energy. The company had 203,000 net acres leased which produce 521 million cubic feet of natural gas per day in the area.The Haynesville Shale produced 3.1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in 2020, down from 3.2 trillion in 2019, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. In general, natural gas production from the shale play in Louisiana has nearly doubled since 2015. The move is part of Chesapeake's environmental, social and governance goals which are an increasingly influential economic driver since many institutional investors require portfolio companies to consider more than just shareholder profits. "Leading a responsible energy future is foundational to Chesapeake's success," said Doug Lawler, chief executive officer of Chesapeake Energy in a news release. "We will be able to further demonstrate our commitment to generating shareholder value and (environmental, social and governance) excellence." The company recently emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and told Reuters 85% of its spending this year will be on its natural gas fields. [Louisiana LNG operator to offset carbon emissions for proposed $11B plant in Cameron Parish2/21Bloomberg) --Chesapeake Energy, the once-iconic energy explorer that helped ignite the American shale-gas boom, is emerging from bankruptcy protection a shadow of its former self. And in a way, that’s just fine with its boss.“Shale has been marked by growth, and growth for all the wrong reasons,” Doug Lawler, the company’s CEO, said in an interview. “What we see going forward is a new era for shale.”The driller exited Chapter 11 protection on Tuesday. Long gone is co-founder and ex-CEO Aubrey McClendon, who died in 2016, three years after he was forced out in a Carl Icahn-led boardroom revolt. Also consigned to history is Chesapeake’s spot in the pantheon of premier U.S. energy producers like Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp. The company lost most of its acquisitive swagger as it grappled with the fallout of ill-timed deals that saddled it with a crushing debt load.These days, Chesapeake is slimmed down, chastened and looking to make its way in a shale industry that has gone through a painful evolution. Lawler, who’s led the company since 2013 (and who says bankruptcy could have been avoided if it wasn’t for 2020’s oil price crash) has overseen a reduction of 90% of its workforce. Just last week, the company made another round of job cuts at its Oklahoma City-based campus, and moved to redevelop the expansive site, much of which is now surplus to requirements.Chesapeake is also pledging to produce free cash flow, an increasingly common mantra in shale, which has been heavily criticized by shareholders for prioritizing production growth over investment returns. Their opprobrium is understandable: In the past decade, the sector saw more than $300 billion in losses. Lawler, 54, said shale’s cash-burning days are done.“They’re absolutely over,” he said. “The investors and market demand it. It demands that we return more cash to shareholders and that we have greater discipline in our business. It also demands improvements in ESG.”Clouded OutlookChesapeake stock surged 16% to $49.97 at 9:44 a.m. in New York on its post-bankruptcy debut Wednesday.Lawler, a former chief of overseas exploration at Anadarko Petroleum Corp., dismantled the cult of personality that had prevailed at Chesapeake even after McClendon’s departure and instituted an austere, no-nonsense focus on financial returns. Under his tenure, Chesapeake cut its debt by more than half.But the turnaround was too little and too late given the demands on the company’s cash by debtors just as the pandemic paralyzed economies -- and energy consumption -- around the globe. Chesapeake sought bankruptcy protection in June, shouldering more than $9 billion in debt.The filing came just months after the company refinanced billions in debt. During the case, noteholders and other unsecured creditors claimed Chesapeake was undervaluing much of its undeveloped real estate and demanded a higher payout.U.S. Bankruptcy Judge David Jones sided with the company and approved Chesapeake’s reorganization plan over the committee’s objection. But Jones did find that Chesapeake was worth about $5 billion, hundreds of millions more than the company’s estimate.Expert DeparturesStill carrying $1.27 billion of debt, the fracking pioneer is exiting Chapter 11 with energy markets looking a bit better than they did a year earlier. Oil has rallied in 2021 after Saudi Arabia cut production, while in gas, U.S. stockpiles are forecast to end the winter at below-normal levels because of frigid weather and robust overseas orders.But Chesapeake is also re-entering the sphere of publicly traded drillers without many of the assets and in-house experts that previously it could call upon. Not only did Chesapeake auction off premier gas fields in an unsuccessful bid to stay afloat, but it dismissed many geologists, engineers and physicists who were among the world’s most-experienced shale specialists.Despite the job cuts, the company’s multi-generational workforce has sufficient expertise to maximize the value of Chesapeake’s asset base, spokesman Gordon Pennoyer said.“We’re going to offer a very competitive, free-cash flow generation machine that has a disciplined approach to our capital-reinvestment rate, that has a very strong, disciplined approach to our cash cost – focused not just on profitability but also sustainability,” Lawler said.Chesapeake plans to use $1.3 billion of fresh financing to focus on gas drilling in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale and the Haynesville region of Louisiana. The company is also pledging to eliminate flaring -- the intentional burning off of excess gas at remote well sites -- by 2025 and to achieve net-zero greenhouse-gas emissions by 2035.“What’s clear from the development plans, is that Chesapeake will become a natural gas growth company anchored by the Marcellus and Haynesville while the oil assets are harvested for free cash flow,” Josh Silverstein, a Wolfe Research LLC analyst, wrote in a note to clients.=ew 720<h1 class="widgetheadline h1" style="margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; cursor: pointer; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a class="widgetheadline-text custom-post-headline" href="https://www.ecowatch.com/chesapeake-energy-2646306665.html" aria-label="Fracking Giant Chesapeake Energy Files for Bankruptcy" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Fracking Giant Chesapeake Energy Files for Bankruptcy</a></h1><div class="post-tags-primary" style="margin-top: 5px; font-weight: 700; text-transform: uppercase; display: inline-block; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a class="post-tags-primary-link" href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/fracking" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1;">FRACKING</a></div><div></div><div>motherfrackers: not only got covid bailout but changed rules to pay down their DEBT</div><div>
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</div><div><div><a href="https://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2020/05/11/oil-and-gas-companies-asked-then-received-changes-to-fed-coronavirus-stimulus-program/">https://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2020/05/11/oil-and-gas-companies-asked-then-received-changes-to-fed-coronavirus-stimulus-program/</a></div><div>
</div><div>oil and gas companies asked, then received changes to Fed coronavirus stimulus program</div><h2 class="subTitle" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 2.25rem; animation: 2s ease 0s 1 normal none running fadein; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Help with refinancing debt could help shale companies in PA</h2><ul class="si-accordion" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; list-style: outside none; line-height: 1.65; animation: 2s ease 0s 1 normal none running fadein; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><li class="si-divider" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 1rem; border: 2px solid rgb(255, 255, 255); width: 42rem; left: -1rem; position: relative; transition: padding 0.5s ease 0s;"><byline class="accordion-head title-color si-title" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: block; line-height: 1.65rem; letter-spacing: 0px; cursor: pointer;">Reid Frazier</byline></li><li class="si-divider" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 1rem; border: 2px solid rgb(255, 255, 255); width: 42rem; left: -1rem; position: relative; transition: padding 0.5s ease 0s;"><byline class="accordion-head title-color si-title" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: block; line-height: 1.65rem; font-weight: 700; letter-spacing: 0px; cursor: pointer;">mAY 11, 2020 </byline></li></ul>Oil and gas companies in Pennsylvania could benefit from a change to a Federal Reserve stimulus program aimed at helping businesses during the coronavirus pandemic.Critics have attacked the changes, calling them a “stealth bailout” for heavily indebted oil and gas companies.  The changes were made in late April to the Fed’s Main Street Lending program, part of the $2 trillion coronavirus <a href="https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/cares" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-position: 0px 90%; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 2px; background-image: none; text-shadow: none; padding-bottom: 2px; font-weight: 600;">relief bill</a> passed by Congress in March. The <a href="https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/mainstreetlending.htm" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-position: 0px 90%; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 2px; background-image: none; text-shadow: none; padding-bottom: 2px; font-weight: 600;">$600 billion loan program</a> is intended to help small- and medium-sized businesses that were in good financial shape before the pandemic struck. When the Fed rolled out the program, it prohibited companies from using the loans to pay off debts. Oil and gas companies and their advocates asked the central bank to loosen up those guidelines. One of their biggest asks: They wanted to be allowed to use the loans to pay off other debts, too. The Fed’s final guidelines gave those companies their wish — companies could use the loans to pay off some types of debt. And the maximum loan size increased from $150 million to $200 million. Oil-state Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Kevin Cramer of North Dakota praised the changes. “It’s another arrow in the quiver” to help the oil industry in his state, Cramer said in a <a href="https://senatorkevincramer.app.box.com/s/6yae7q4g7gzsa8angdpaq8g423wtuiyn" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-position: 0px 90%; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 2px; background-image: none; text-shadow: none; padding-bottom: 2px; font-weight: 600;">video statement</a>. Environmentalists questioned whether the government should be throwing a lifeline to the fossil fuel industry — one of the country’s biggest sources of greenhouse gases. <a href="https://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/tag/climate-change/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-position: 0px 90%; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 2px; background-image: none; text-shadow: none; padding-bottom: 2px; font-weight: 600;">Emissions must be cut dramatically, scientists say, if the world is to avoid the worst effects of climate change</a>.Others saw the Federal Reserve — an independent institution that is supposed to stay outside politics — giving preferential treatment to a powerful industry with substantial ties to the Trump administration. “This is an oil bailout for a specific set of companies,” said Graham Steele, the director of the Corporations and Society Initiative at Stanford Graduate School of Business.Steele, a former aide to Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, said the program is risky because climate change risks making these companies’ assets — oil and gas reserves — “<a href="https://prospect.org/economy/climate-bailout-is-big-finance-bailout/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-position: 0px 90%; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 2px; background-image: none; text-shadow: none; padding-bottom: 2px;">stranded assets</a>” in the future, if governments tax carbon to avert runaway climate change. He said the loans are also risky because many of the companies were doing poorly before the pandemic.  “(The Fed) had structured the program in a way so as not to lose taxpayers’ money. And now members of Congress and industry have lobbied them. And under that pressure, they have buckled. They have changed the program to help out a specific industry,” Steele said.The Federal Reserve says changes to the program weren’t made with the oil industry in mind, and that other industries could benefit. Business groups like theU.S. Chamber of Commerce also lobbied for the changes. But observers see the Fed’s revisions to its lending guidelines as a clear win for oil and gas companies. David Livingston with Eurasia group, a risk management firm, said the changes are especially good for oil and gas companies because of the high amount of debt some have accumulated.He said they’ve had to borrow because revenues from oil and gas alone have not been enough for them to cover their costs. “They were sort of running on a treadmill and the entire shale enterprise was increasing its production month over month, year over year over year, in large part, thanks to the continued provision of relatively low cost capital,” Livingston said.The idea behind the strategy was that prices for oil and gas would eventually rise and they’d be able to pay off their debts. But the opposite has happened, at least for oil. It <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2020-05-08/how-the-coronavirus-caused-oil-prices-to-drop-below-zero-video" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-position: 0px 90%; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 2px; background-image: none; text-shadow: none; padding-bottom: 2px; font-weight: 600;">plummeted into the negative range</a> in April, though prices are recovering. The loans could also help natural gas companies that operate in Pennsylvania. A group of GOP senators from Pennsylvania and other Appalachian states <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6884758-4-16-20-Letter-to-Mnuchin-Powell-Re-Nat-Gas.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-position: 0px 90%; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 2px; background-image: none; text-shadow: none; padding-bottom: 2px;">wrote</a> in favor of the changes in April. “Many producers will have debts come due before this health crisis is expected to subside,” the letter stated. “These companies would have been able to pay their debt obligations out of normal cash flows if not for the virus.” Jeffrey Ventura, CEO of gas driller <a href="https://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/news/2020/04/17/natural-gas-industry-urges-change-to-cares-act.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-position: 0px 90%; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 2px; background-image: none; text-shadow: none; padding-bottom: 2px; font-weight: 600;">Range Resources</a>, also lobbied the Fed to loosen its guidelines. A company spokesman did not respond to requests for comment. The CEO of the <a href="https://www.ipaa.org/letters-comments/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-position: 0px 90%; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 2px; background-image: none; text-shadow: none; padding-bottom: 2px; font-weight: 600;">Independent Petroleum Assocation of America</a> <a href="https://files.constantcontact.com/8df2ce19301/1f68ad37-7a3f-405b-bfe5-abdece754cdc.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-position: 0px 90%; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 2px; background-image: none; text-shadow: none; padding-bottom: 2px; font-weight: 600;">wrote</a> Fed Chair Jerome Powell in April that loosening the loan guidelines would “limit the number of defaults” in the industry.“Oil and natural gas producers are not looking for a government handout; they are seeking a bridge to help survive this economic disruption,” the letter stated. It’s unclear which companies would take advantage of the program. Spokesmen for CNX Resources and Cabot, two of Pennsylvania’s leading drillers, both said their companies would not apply for the loans. EQT and Range Resources did not respond to requests for comment. The crash in oil prices may have actually helped some of these companies by inflating the price of natural gas.Since oil wells also produce natural gas, when oil production slows, less natural gas comes onto the market, and the price for natural gas goes up. Gas futures for January 2021 are trading above $3 per million British Thermal Units, well above the current $1.84 price.  Still, some of these companies are holding debts they accumulated from leasing millions of acres of land during the fracking boom that began around 2008.“For years, shale was all about grabbing land,” said Bill Holland, who covers the natural gas industry for S&P Global Market Intelligence. “So these companies spent big to lease big, big tracts of land in western Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, in the Utica and Marcellus shales — the land grab. And that debt is still on their books.”One company that could benefit from the Fed’s new loan program is Chesapeake Energy, which has a big debt payment coming due this year. The company did not respond to a request for comment.  But Holland said it’s unclear whether Chesapeake could qualify for the loan. News outlets are reporting the company, saddled with over $9 billion in debt, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-chesapeake-enrgy-bankruptcy-exclusive/exclusive-chesapeake-energy-preparing-bankruptcy-filing-idUSKBN22B31M" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-position: 0px 90%; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 2px; background-image: none; text-shadow: none; padding-bottom: 2px; font-weight: 600;">is getting ready to file</a> for bankruptcy.</div><div></div><div></div><div>
</div><div>aha: new 3x whammy?</div><div>
</div><div>covid drive price negative, chesapeake bankrupt (// desmog never made $?)</div><div>
</div><div><div>3 wins, also XL and atlantic gas</div><div>
</div><div><div><h3 class="magcat-titlte entry-title" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; letter-spacing: 1px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/judge-rules-that-dakota-access-pipeline-must-be-shut-down-and-emptied/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; display: block; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 1.4;">Judge rules that Dakota Access Pipeline must be shut down and emptied</a><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/judge-rules-that-dakota-access-pipeline-must-be-shut-down-and-emptied/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; display: block; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 1.4;"></a><a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/matthew-rozsa/" title="Posts by Matthew Rozsa" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Matthew Rozsa</a> / <a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/salon/" title="Posts by Salon " class="author url fn" rel="author" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Salo</a>n<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/judge-rules-that-dakota-access-pipeline-must-be-shut-down-and-emptied/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; display: block; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 1.4;">an 720</a></h3></div><div>=</div></div></div><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/11/06/debt-fracking-chesapeake-energy-stock-price-dollar">https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/11/06/debt-fracking-chesapeake-energy-stock-price-dollar</a>1219<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/11/06/debt-fracking-chesapeake-energy-stock-price-dollar" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px;">Chesapeake Energy’s Stock Falls Below $1 But Driller Plans to Spend Over $1 Billion on More Fracking</a>=december 7, 2012 Press Release <a href="http://www.ppb.state.ok.us/triton/modules/newsroom/newsroom_article.php?id=223&article_id=10048" title="News article detail " style="text-decoration-line: none;">Governor Fallin Announces New Interchange at Radio Road/I-40 in El Reno </a>Public/ private sector partnership to fund construction OKLAHOMA CITY– Governor Mary Fallin today announced the construction of a new interchange at Radio Road and Interstate-40 in El Reno, an area that has become a regional business center for the energy service industry. The project was made possible by a historic partnership between Chesapeake Energy Corporation, the Oklahoma Department of Transportation, and the city of El Reno....<a href="http://www.ppb.state.ok.us/triton/modules/newsroom/newsroom_article.php?id=223&article_id=10048" title="News article detail " class="newsroom_read_more_link" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Read More</a><div>=</div><div><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/04/18/finances-great-american-fracking-bubble">https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/04/18/finances-great-american-fracking-bubble</a></div><div>
</div><div>2008, Aubrey McClendon was the <a href="https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2009/05/01/list-of-highest-paid-ceos-for-2008/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">highest paid</a> Fortune 500 CEO in America, a title he earned taking home $112 million for running Chesapeake Energy. Later dubbed <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Bloomberg-Businessweek-Aubrey-McClendon-1959-2016/dp/B01CWBLDA0" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">“The Shale King,”</a> he was at the forefront of the oil and gas industry's next boom, made possible by advances in fracking, which broke open fossil fuels from shale formations around the U.S.What was McClendon’s secret? Instead of running a company that aimed to sell oil and gas, he was essentially flipping real estate: acquiring leases to drill on land and then reselling them for five to 10 times more, something <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2015/08/02/once-burned-twice-shy-utica-shale-touted-investors-shale-drillers-continue-posting-losses" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">McClendon explained</a> was a lot more profitable than “trying to produce gas.” But his story may serve as a cautionary tale for an industry that keeps making big promises on borrowed dimes — while its investors begin losing patience, a trend DeSmog will be <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/finances-fracking-shale-industry-drills-more-debt-profit" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">investigating in an in-depth series</a> over the coming weeks. From 2008 to 2009, Chesapeake Energy’s stock swung from $64 a share under McClendon to around $17. Today, it's worth just <a href="https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=NYSE:+CHK&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">$3 a share</a> — the same price it was in 2000. A visionary when it came to fracking, McClendon perfected the formula of borrowing money to drive the revolution that reshaped American energy markets. <h3 style="line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;">An Industry Built on Debt</h3>Roughly a decade after McClendon's rise, the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/wall-streets-fracking-frenzy-runs-dry-as-profits-fail-to-materialize-1512577420" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Wall Street Journal reported</a> that “energy companies [since 2007] have spent $280 billion more than they generated from operations on shale investments, according to advisory firm Evercore ISI.”As a whole, the American fracking experiment has been <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/wall-streets-fracking-frenzy-runs-dry-as-profits-fail-to-materialize-1512577420" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">a financial disaster </a>for many of its investors, who have been plagued by the industry's heavy borrowing, low returns, and <a href="https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/amp/The-oil-bust-forced-more-than-330-North-American-12831308.php" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">bankruptcies,</a> and the path to becoming profitable is lined with significant potential hurdles. Up to this point, the industry has been drilling the <a href="http://partners.wsj.com/ceraweek/connection/sweet-spot-key-shale/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">“sweet spots” </a>in the country's major shale formations, reaching the easiest and most valuable oil first.But at the same time energy companies are borrowing more money to drill more wells, the sweet spots are drying up, creating a Catch-22 as more drilling drives more debt. “You have to keep drilling,” David Hughes, a geoscientist and fellow <a href="http://www.postcarbon.org/publications/shale-reality-check/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">specializing in shale gas and oil</a> production <a href="http://www.postcarbon.org/our-people/david-hughes/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">at the Post Carbon Institute</a>, told DeSmog. But he also noted that with most of the sweet spots already drilled, producers are forced to move to less productive areas.The result? “Productivity goes down and the costs remain the same,” he explained.While Hughes understands the industry's rationale for continuing to drill new wells at a loss, he doubts the sustainability of the practice.“I don't think in the long-term they can drill their way out of this,” Hughes told DeSmog.While politicians and the mainstream media tout an American energy “revolution,” it is becoming clear that — like the housing bubble just a few years earlier — the American oil and gas boom spurred by fracking innovations may be one of the largest money-losing endeavors in the nation's history. And it caught up with McClendon.In 2016, the shale king was indicted for rigging bids at drilling lease auctions. He died the very next day in a single car crash, leading to speculation McClendon committed suicide, a rumor impossible to confirm. However, the police chief on the scene <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/aubrey-mcclendon-no-evidence-suicide-death-indicted-oil-man-n588181" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">noted</a>: “There was plenty of opportunity for him to correct and get back on the roadway and that didn't occur.”The same could be said of the current shale industry. There is plenty of opportunity for these energy companies to correct their path — for example, by linking CEO pay to company profits rather than <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/wall-streets-fracking-frenzy-runs-dry-as-profits-fail-to-materialize-1512577420" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">oil production volumes</a> — but instead they are plowing <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2018/03/01/u-s-breaks-47-year-old-monthly-oil-production-record/#6b93d78468cc" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">full-speed ahead </a>with a business model that seems poised for a crash. <h3 style="line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;">But Hope Springs Eternal</h3>Of course, business media and conservative think tanks are still selling the story that the fracking industry has produced an economic and technical revolution.In 2017 Investors Business Daily ran an opinion piece with the title, <a href="https://www.investors.com/politics/commentary/the-shale-revolution-is-a-made-in-america-success-story/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">“The Shale Revolution Is A Made-In-America Success Story.”</a> It was authored by Mark Perry of the <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/american-enterprise-institute" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">American Enterprise Institute</a> — a free market-focused think tank funded in part by the oil and gas industry.How does the author measure success? Not via profits. The metric Perry uses to argue the success of the fracking industry is production volume. And it is true that the volumes of oil produced by fracking shale are increasing and currently <a href="https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=35052" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">at record levels</a>. But here is the catch — when you lose money on each barrel of oil you pump and sell — the more you pump, the more money you lose. While it is true that the industry has been successful at getting oil out of the ground, its companies have mostly lost money doing it.However, much like with the U.S. housing boom, this false narrative persists that the fracking industry is a money-making, rather than money-losing, venture.A <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/frackers-could-make-more-money-than-ever-in-2018-if-they-dont-blow-it-1516536000" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Wall Street Journal headline</a> published in early 2018 projected this eternal optimism about the fracking industry: “Frackers Could Make More Money Than Ever in 2018, If They Don’t Blow It.”This headline manages to be, at the same time, both very misleading and true. Misleading because the industry has never made money. True because if oil and gas companies make any money fracking in 2018, it would be more “than ever.”However, the nuance comes in the sub-headline: “U.S. shale companies are poised to make real money this year for the first time since the start of the fracking boom.”Poised to make “real money” for “the first time.” Or to put it another way, the industry hopes to stop losing large amounts of real money for the first time this year.In March 2017, <a href="https://www.economist.com/news/business-and-finance/21719436-exploration-and-production-companies-are-poised-go-another-investment-spree-americas" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">The Economist </a>wrote about the finances of the fracking industry, pointing out just how much money these businesses are burning through:<blockquote style="margin: 1.5em 30px;">With the exception of airlines, Chinese state enterprises, and Silicon Valley unicorns — private firms valued at more than $1 billion — shale firms are on an unparalleled money-losing streak. About $11 billion was torched in the latest quarter, as capital expenditures exceeded cashflows. The cash-burn rate may well rise again this year.</blockquote>Some historic money-losing has been going on, and is expected to continue, as <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/wall-streets-fracking-frenzy-runs-dry-as-profits-fail-to-materialize-1512577420" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">reported by the Wall Street Journal</a>: “Wood Mackenzie estimates that if oil prices hover around $50, shale companies won’t generate positive cash flow as a group until 2020.” However, Craig McMahon, senior vice president at Wood MacKenzie, notes, “Even then, only the most efficient operators will do well.”U.S. oil produced via fracking is priced as West Texas Intermediate (WTI), which averaged <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/266659/west-texas-intermediate-oil-prices/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">$41 a barrel in 2016</a> and $51 in 2017. The consensus is that WTI should average over <a href="https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/report/prices.php" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">$50 a barrel </a>in 2018, thus providing the industry another reason to keep pushing forward. However, even in 2017 with the average over $50 a barrel, the industry as a whole was not profitable. <h3 style="line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;">Irrational Exuberance</h3>In the introduction to <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Big-Short-Inside-Doomsday-Machine/dp/0393338827" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">The Big Short</a>, Michael Lewis’ book-turned-movie about how the 2008 financial crash unfolded, he describes the finances of the housing bubble:<blockquote style="margin: 1.5em 30px;">“All these subprime lending companies were growing so rapidly, and using such goofy accounting, that they could mask the fact that they had no real earnings, just illusory, accounting-driven, ones. They had the essential feature of a Ponzi scheme: To maintain the fiction that they were profitable enterprises, they needed more and more capital to create more and more subprime loans.”</blockquote>If you substitute “shale oil and gas development companies” for “subprime lending companies,” it becomes an apt description of the current shale industry. These companies are losing more money than they make and can only sustain this scenario if lenders continue to bankroll their efforts, allowing the fracking industry to drill more wells as it points to production increases, rather than profits, as progress. Which — for now — Wall Street continues to do <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-13/bankers-fading-fear-of-oil-lending-is-latest-boon-for-shale" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">in a big way.</a>This article is the first in a <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/finances-fracking-shale-industry-drills-more-debt-profit" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">series investigating the economics of fracking</a> and where the vast sums of money being pumped into this industry are actually going. The series will look at how fracking companies are shifting these epic losses to the American taxpayers. It will review the huge challenges facing the industry even if oil and gas prices rise: the physical production limits of fracked wells, rising interest rates, rising water costs, competition from renewables, OPEC’s plans, and what happens if Wall Street stops loaning it money.The oil industry has always been a boom or bust industry. And during each boom someone inevitably declares that “this time is different,” assuring everyone there won’t be a bust. The sentiment about the early 2000s housing bubble was much the same, with critics being drowned out by the players claiming that, this time it was different, arguing “Housing doesn’t go down in value.”And what about for shale production? Is this time really different? Some in the industry apparently think so.“Is this time going to be different? I think yes, a little bit,” energy asset manager Will Riley told the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/frackers-could-make-more-money-than-ever-in-2018-if-they-dont-blow-it-1516536000" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Wall Street Journal. </a>“Companies will look to increase growth a little, but at a more moderate pace.” There is <a href="https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/US-Oil-Production-Is-Rising-Much-Faster-Than-Expected.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">little evidence</a> of restraint or moderation in the industry. Until analysts and investors start talking about profits instead of growth, however, this time is likely to end, at some point, in a completely familiar and predictable way: bust. A fate even Aubrey McClendon, the highest-paid CEO, the shale king, eventually met.David Hughes summed up his take on the industry's financial outlook: “Ultimately, you hit the wall. It's just a question of time.”</div><div>
</div><div>=</div>Last Tuesday, the Justice Department announced criminal charges against former Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McClendon, stemming from an alleged lease bid-rigging conspiracy between McClendon and another unidentified oil and gas company. The felony count against McClendon carried up to a decade in prison and $1 million in fines.Shortly after 9 AM the next day, McClendon crashed his SUV at over 50 mph into a concrete highway overpass and died instantly of blunt force trauma. Police are continuing to investigate McClendon's cause of death, awaiting toxicology results and other data, and have not ruled out the possibility that the car wreck may have been a suicide. <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://desmogblog.cmail20.com/t/t-l-djtklhy-yuirlyty-g/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; outline: none; font-weight: bold; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: transparent; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Read more.</a><a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/news/07052015/journal-corrects-fracking-study-over-undisclosed-industry-funding">http://insideclimatenews.org/news/07052015/journal-corrects-fracking-study-over-undisclosed-industry-funding</a>An influential science journal has issued a correction to a paper on fracking and water safety, after revelations that the authors did not disclose their financial ties to energy giant Chesapeake Energy. The correction was <a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/news/06042015/fracking-study-water-contamination-under-ethics-review" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; outline: none;">prompted by an article in InsideClimate News</a> in April.The <a href="http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es505775c" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; outline: none;">paper, published in the journal</a> <a href="http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es505775c" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; outline: none;">Environmental Science & Technology</a>, concluded that drinking water wells near natural gas sites are not at greater risk of methane contamination than those farther way. It was based on more than 11,000 water samples from Pennsylvania fracking country. Citing its breadth, the authors said the paper challenges smaller studies that link gas drilling to methane pollution.Chesapeake, the nation's second-largest producer of gas, provided the samples to the research team, led by Donald Siegel, chairman of earth sciences at Syracuse University.While that was disclosed in the paper, Siegel failed to divulge that he had been compensated by Chesapeake for his work. The authors also did not disclose that one of the co-authors, Bert Smith, worked for Chesapeake during part of the period when the study took place.In <a href="http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.est.5b01800" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; outline: none;">an unusually long, first-page correction</a>, the American Chemical Society, which publishes ES&T, said that Siegel was "funded privately by Chesapeake for his work." It also confirmed that Smith worked for Chesapeake from May 2012 to September 2013, part of the study period. Smith now works for a contractor for Chesapeake."The opinions and conclusions expressed in this paper are strictly those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of Chesapeake Energy," the authors wrote in the correction.<a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/chesapeake-energys-5-billion-shuffle">http://www.propublica.org/article/chesapeake-energys-5-billion-shuffle</a> cut pay to landowners=

<a href="http://grist.org/news/fracking-company-finds-new-way-to-screw-over-the-environment/">http://grist.org/news/fracking-company-finds-new-way-to-screw-over-the-environment/</a>

Props are in order for Chesapeake Energy Corp., one of the country’s biggest natural gas producers, for finding yet another way to make a big mess with fracking. This time, it was irresponsible construction practices.

Company subsidiary Chesapeake Appalachia will pay a near-record $3.2 million in federal penalties for clean water violations at fracking facilities in West Virginia. <a href="http://www2.epa.gov/enforcement/chesapeake-appalachia-llc-clean-water-settlement" target="blank" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; max-width: 100%;">It will also spend $6.5 million more</a>to restore 27 sites that it damaged with construction activities and pollution. <a href="http://triblive.com/news/adminpage/5285954-74/federal-chesapeake-agencies#axzz2oOiztme8" target="blank" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; max-width: 100%;">From the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review</a>:

Most of the discharges subject to the consent decree are related to the construction of fracking facilities, but none of them involved actual fracking, said Donna Heron, spokeswoman for the EPA’s Mid-Atlantic region.

“In doing the construction, that’s where they were discharging fill material into the wetlands and the streams. And that’s what the violations were about,” she said.

The violations of the Clean Water Act involved discharges done without required Army Corps of Engineers permits, said Tom Aluise, spokesman for the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection. …

West Virginia, which is a co-plaintiff in the settlement, will receive half of the civil penalty.

</blockquote>

We get that that frackers are keen to make a buck. But why, oh why, must they do absolutely everything with nary a thought given to the environment?

</a><div class="grist-sources" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 30px; padding: 0px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 21.5938px; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a id="grist-end-of-article" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; max-width: 100%;">

</a><div class="span-8 textright" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; margin: 0px 2px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; float: left; width: 150px; text-align: right;"><a id="grist-end-of-article" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; max-width: 100%;">

</a><h3 style="border: 0px; margin: 6px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline;"><a id="grist-end-of-article" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; max-width: 100%;">Source</a></h3>

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</a><div class="grist-source-arrow" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; display: block; width: 16px; height: 31px; background-image: url(" http="http" s2.wp.com="s2.wp.com" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" vip="vip" grist="grist" img="img" ui="ui" sprite.png="sprite.png" v="22" background-color="background-color" transparent="transparent" background-position="background-position" px="px" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat"><a id="grist-end-of-article" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; max-width: 100%;">

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</a><ul class="list-style-type-none" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a id="grist-end-of-article" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; max-width: 100%;">

</a><li style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style-image: none; list-style-type: none;"><a id="grist-end-of-article" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; max-width: 100%;" /><a href="http://triblive.com/news/adminpage/5285954-74/federal-chesapeake-agencies#axzz2oOiztme8" target="_blank" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none;">Chesapeake Energy subsidiary to pay fine for dumping into W.Va. streams</a>, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review</li>

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==

Edward McAllister

NEW YORK, Sept 9 (Reuters) - Chesapeake Energy Corp has agreed to release more than 13,000 acres of land leased for oil and gas drilling in New York state as a ban on fracking extends into its sixth year, a statement from lawyers involved in the case confirmed on Monday.

The Oklahoma-based company agreed to terminate the leases in Tioga and Broome counties in the southern portion of the state, ending a two-year legal battle with over 200 landowners, according to law firm Levene Gouldin & Thompson, which represented landowners.

The impending deal was reported by Reuters last month.

Chesapeake had been appealing a federal court ruling in November that stated the company could not use a state ban on high volume hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking, as a reason to declare force majeure and extend leases beyond their expiry without offering landowners better terms.

Some landowners, who signed their leases during the last 13 years before a U.S. drilling boom boosted land prices in gas-rich areas like New York, had been calling for a release from the leases to seek more lucrative deals from other energy firms. Other landowners are now opposed to any drilling on their land altogether.

Chesapeake's decision to now drop the leases is a sign of energy firms' growing frustration over operating in the Empire State, where most drilling has been on hold since 2008. It is also an indication of how the Oklahoma-based company is reining in spending after years of aggressive acreage buying left it with towering debt.

==

pr: The American Clean Skies Foundation -- a Washington D.C. based <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/501(c)3" title="501(c)3" class="mw-redirect" style="line-height: 1.5em; text-decoration: none; background-image: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">501(c)3</a> non-profit group -- states on its website that it "was formed in 2007 to provide all the facts on clean energy -- particularly natural gas and other clean fuels such as wind and solar -- and about the need for greater energy efficiency."<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Clean_Skies_Foundation#cite_note-0" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background-image: none;">[1]</a> The organization was founded by<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Aubrey_K._McClendon" title="Aubrey K. McClendon" class="mw-redirect" style="line-height: 1.5em; text-decoration: none; background-image: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Aubrey K. McClendon</a>, the billionaire CEO of Oklahoma City-based <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Chesapeake_Energy" title="Chesapeake Energy" style="line-height: 1.5em; text-decoration: none; background-image: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Chesapeake Energy</a> Corp., one of the country's top sellers of natural gas.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Clean_Skies_Foundation#cite_note-1" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background-image: none;">[2]</a>

In December 2007, the Foundation reported $2,836,504 in assets and $3,166,303 in income, according to <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Internal_Revenue_Service" title="Internal Revenue Service" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Internal Revenue Service</a> reports. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Clean_Skies_Foundation#cite_note-2" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background-image: none;">[3]</a>

<h2 style="margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border: none; width: auto; display: inline; background-image: none;">Contents</h2>

[<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Clean_Skies_Foundation#" class="internal" id="togglelink" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">hide</a>] </div>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-1" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Clean_Skies_Foundation#Clean_Skies_TV_Network" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">1 Clean Skies TV Network</a>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-2" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Clean_Skies_Foundation#Branded_News" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">1.1 Branded News</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-3" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Clean_Skies_Foundation#ShaleCountry.Com" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">1.2 ShaleCountry.Com</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-4" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Clean_Skies_Foundation#Personnel" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">1.3 Personnel</a></li>

</ul>

</li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-5" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Clean_Skies_Foundation#Personnel_2" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">2 Personnel</a>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-6" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Clean_Skies_Foundation#Former_personnel" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">2.1 Former personnel</a></li>

</ul>

</li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-7" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Clean_Skies_Foundation#Contact_details" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">3 Contact details</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-8" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Clean_Skies_Foundation#Mission_Statement_as_Propaganda" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">4 Mission Statement as Propaganda</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-9" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Clean_Skies_Foundation#Links" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">5 Links</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-10" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Clean_Skies_Foundation#Articles_and_resources" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">6 Articles and resources</a>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-11" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Clean_Skies_Foundation#Related_SourceWatch_articles" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">6.1 Related SourceWatch articles</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-12" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Clean_Skies_Foundation#References" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">6.2 References</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-13" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Clean_Skies_Foundation#External_resources" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">6.3 External resources</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-14" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Clean_Skies_Foundation#External_articles" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">6.4 External articles</a></li>

</ul>

</li>

</ul>

</td></tr></tbody></table>

<h2 style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); width: auto; background-image: none;">Clean Skies TV Network</h2>

In April 2008, the Foundation launched CleanSkies.tv, later renamed the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Clean_Skies_TV_Network&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Clean Skies TV Network (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Clean Skies TV Network</a>. The online video channel "has applied for press credentials that would place its reporters and crew inside the U.S. Capitol," according to Dow Jones. The CleanSkies.tv program "Clean Skies Sunday," which is anchored by former CBS Morning News host <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Susan_McGinnis&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Susan McGinnis (page does not exist)" style=" text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Susan McGinnis</a>, is also broadcast by the WJLA-7, the ABC affiliate in Washington DC. One show featured Chesapeake CEO Aubrey McClendon discussing a Clean Skies Foundation report that concluded "natural gas supplies are vast enough to meet current demand for more than 100 years, a key talking point by the natural gas industry in its congressional lobbying efforts." <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Clean_Skies_Foundation#cite_note-DowCS-3" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[4]</a> <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Clean_Skies_Foundation#cite_note-4" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[5]</a>

CleanSkies.tv initially had "peer-group partners," which "advise it on select programming," including <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Honda&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Honda (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Honda</a> USA, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Natural_Gas_Vehicles_for_America&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Natural Gas Vehicles for America (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Natural Gas Vehicles for America</a> and natural-gas provider <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Clean_Energy_Fuels&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Clean Energy Fuels (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Clean Energy Fuels</a>. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Clean_Skies_Foundation#cite_note-5" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[6]</a>

In late 2008, Chesapeake plans to launch another online video channel, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Shale.tv&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Shale.tv (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Shale.tv</a>, named after the Barnett Shale natural gas formation in North Texas. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Clean_Skies_Foundation#cite_note-6" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[7]</a>

<h3 style="margin: 0px 0px 0.3em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom-style: none; width: auto; background-image: none;">Branded News</h3>

CleanSkies.tv was initially "operated by <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Branded_News" title="Branded News" style=" text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Branded News</a>, the Oklahoma company that also runs the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/National_Rifle_Association" title="National Rifle Association" style=" text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">National Rifle Association</a>'s online television site." The CleanSkies.tv news division "is part of the CleanSkies.tv network, but says its activities are shielded from the foundation's influence by an oversight committee chaired by former Associated Press Chairman <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Burl_Osborne" title="Burl Osborne" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Burl Osborne</a>," according to a 2008 article. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Clean_Skies_Foundation#cite_note-DowCS-3" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[4]</a>

As of 2009, the Clean Skies Network website stated, "The Board of Directors of the [American Clean Skies] Foundation believes that one of the best ways they can accomplish their mission is to fully support our News Division in its efforts to inform the public about all forms of energy, objectively and free from bias. Clean Skies News operates with full editorial independence in its' [sic] reporting, guaranteed." <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Clean_Skies_Foundation#cite_note-7" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[8]</a>

<h3 style="margin: 0px 0px 0.3em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom-style: none; width: auto; background-image: none;">ShaleCountry.Com</h3>

In July 2010, ACSF launched the <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.shalecountry.com/" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: url(" data:image="data:image" png="png" base64="base64" ivborw0kggoaaaansuheugaaaaoaaaakcayaaacnms="iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs" aaaagxrfwhrtb2z0d2fyzqbbzg9izsbjbwfnzvjlywr5ccllpaaaafzjrefuef59z4ejadeiq1f36k7u5e7zkxeuqpacj3wk7unokvxvk9khnqh7by9hbdydhnxgjprlqflo4m2ggfyjhhjq8v4agfrgpqx3jtjqgbofmchga="AAAAGXRFWHRTb2Z0d2FyZQBBZG9iZSBJbWFnZVJlYWR5ccllPAAAAFZJREFUeF59z4EJADEIQ1F36k7u5E7ZKXeUQPACJ3wK7UNokVxVk9kHnQH7bY9hbDyDhNXgjpRLqFlo4M2GgfyJHhjq8V4agfrgPQX3JtJQGbofmCHgA" nakks="nAKks" jajfaaaaaelftksuqmcc="JAjFAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" background-position="background-position" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat" xmlns:data="data">"Shale Country"</a> website, to promote their mission of promoting natural gas as a clean fuel.

The video aspect of this project is being managed by Harriet Gordon Getzels.

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Link to www.shalecountry.com website: <a rel="nofollow" class="external autonumber" href="http://www.shalecountry.com/" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: url(" data:image="data:image" png="png" base64="base64" ivborw0kggoaaaansuheugaaaaoaaaakcayaaacnms="iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs" aaaagxrfwhrtb2z0d2fyzqbbzg9izsbjbwfnzvjlywr5ccllpaaaafzjrefuef59z4ejadeiq1f36k7u5e7zkxeuqpacj3wk7unokvxvk9khnqh7by9hbdydhnxgjprlqflo4m2ggfyjhhjq8v4agfrgpqx3jtjqgbofmchga="AAAAGXRFWHRTb2Z0d2FyZQBBZG9iZSBJbWFnZVJlYWR5ccllPAAAAFZJREFUeF59z4EJADEIQ1F36k7u5E7ZKXeUQPACJ3wK7UNokVxVk9kHnQH7bY9hbDyDhNXgjpRLqFlo4M2GgfyJHhjq8V4agfrgPQX3JtJQGbofmCHgA" nakks="nAKks" jajfaaaaaelftksuqmcc="JAjFAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" background-position="background-position" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat">[1]</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Production credits at www.shalecountry.com <a rel="nofollow" class="external autonumber" href="http://www.shalecountry.com/content/production-credits" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: url(" data:image="data:image" png="png" base64="base64" ivborw0kggoaaaansuheugaaaaoaaaakcayaaacnms="iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs" aaaagxrfwhrtb2z0d2fyzqbbzg9izsbjbwfnzvjlywr5ccllpaaaafzjrefuef59z4ejadeiq1f36k7u5e7zkxeuqpacj3wk7unokvxvk9khnqh7by9hbdydhnxgjprlqflo4m2ggfyjhhjq8v4agfrgpqx3jtjqgbofmchga="AAAAGXRFWHRTb2Z0d2FyZQBBZG9iZSBJbWFnZVJlYWR5ccllPAAAAFZJREFUeF59z4EJADEIQ1F36k7u5E7ZKXeUQPACJ3wK7UNokVxVk9kHnQH7bY9hbDyDhNXgjpRLqFlo4M2GgfyJHhjq8V4agfrgPQX3JtJQGbofmCHgA" nakks="nAKks" jajfaaaaaelftksuqmcc="JAjFAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" background-position="background-position" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat">[2]</a></li>

</ul>

<h3 style="margin: 0px 0px 0.3em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom-style: none; width: auto; background-image: none;">Personnel</h3>

In 2008, the CleanSkies.tv program "Energy Matters" was hosted by former oil lobbyist <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Denise_Bode" title="Denise Bode" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Denise Bode</a> and was also broadcast on Oklahoma's News Radio 1000, KTOK. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Clean_Skies_Foundation#cite_note-DowCS-3" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[4]</a>

In addition to McGinnis, former journalists working for CleanSkies.tv in 2008 included <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Kelley_Rickenbaker&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Kelley Rickenbaker (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Kelley Rickenbaker</a>, formerly of <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/CBS" title="CBS" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">CBS</a> and <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/CNN" title="CNN" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">CNN</a>; <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Jim_Allen&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Jim Allen (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Jim Allen</a>; and <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anna_Davalos&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Anna Davalos (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Anna Davalos</a>, formerly of the Associated Press Online Video Network. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Clean_Skies_Foundation#cite_note-8" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[9]</a>

<h2 style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); width: auto; background-image: none;">Personnel</h2>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Aubrey_McClendon" title="Aubrey McClendon" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Aubrey McClendon</a>, Chairman & Founder</li>

</ul>

<h3 style="margin: 0px 0px 0.3em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom-style: none; width: auto; background-image: none;">Former personnel</h3>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Denise_A._Bode" title="Denise A. Bode" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Denise A. Bode</a>, CEO. "Bode served for seven years as president of the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA) in Washington, D.C., a national trade organization representing America’s natural gas and oil producers." <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Clean_Skies_Foundation#cite_note-9" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[10]</a></li>

</ul>

<h2 style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); width: auto; background-image: none;">Contact details</h2>

American Clean Skies Foundation

750 1st St N.E. Suite 1100

Washington D.C. 20002

Phone: 202-682-6294

Fax: 202-682-3050

Website: <a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="http://www.cleanskies.org/" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: url(" data:image="data:image" png="png" base64="base64" ivborw0kggoaaaansuheugaaaaoaaaakcayaaacnms="iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs" aaaagxrfwhrtb2z0d2fyzqbbzg9izsbjbwfnzvjlywr5ccllpaaaafzjrefuef59z4ejadeiq1f36k7u5e7zkxeuqpacj3wk7unokvxvk9khnqh7by9hbdydhnxgjprlqflo4m2ggfyjhhjq8v4agfrgpqx3jtjqgbofmchga="AAAAGXRFWHRTb2Z0d2FyZQBBZG9iZSBJbWFnZVJlYWR5ccllPAAAAFZJREFUeF59z4EJADEIQ1F36k7u5E7ZKXeUQPACJ3wK7UNokVxVk9kHnQH7bY9hbDyDhNXgjpRLqFlo4M2GgfyJHhjq8V4agfrgPQX3JtJQGbofmCHgA" nakks="nAKks" jajfaaaaaelftksuqmcc="JAjFAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" background-position="background-position" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat" xmlns:data="data">http://www.cleanskies.org/</a>

<h2 style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); width: auto; background-image: none;">Mission Statement as Propaganda</h2>

The American Clean Skies Foundation was formed to educate the American public about clean energy- particularly natural gas and other clean fuels such as wind and solar- and about the need for greater energy efficiency, and for any other exclusively religious, charitable, scientific, literary and educational purpose included within the meaning of section 501(c) (3) of the Internal revenue Code of 1986 or the corresponding section of any future tax code (the "Code")

</blockquote>

Derrick Jensen and others have pointed out that an element of successful propaganda is if the creators of the message can slide their premises by the audience, without their noticing. So when a Nazi sympathizer asks the question, "What are we going to do about the Jewish problem?", if you answer, he has won, because he has gotten you to accept the premise that a) there is a Jewish problem, and b) something should be done about it. It looks like a question, but it is actually propaganda.

Similarly, we normally don't think about a mission statement as being propaganda, but notice well this part:

The American Clean Skies Foundation was formed to educate the American public about clean energy- particularly natural gas and other clean fuels....

</blockquote>

OK, clean fuels. That's all good. But why mention natural gas here at all? Why not just say "we want to educate about clean fuels" and let the science show what that is? How did they decide a priori that natural gas was "clean energy"? Is this a natural fact which no one disputes? Or is there controversy and doubt about this claim? (A: There is controversy around this claim!) Do the creators of this so-called charitable foundation have financial connections to the gas industry? (Yes, they do!)

<h2 style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); width: auto; background-image: none;">Links</h2>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www2.guidestar.org/ReportNonProfit.aspx?ein=20-8837141&name=american-clean-skies-foundation" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: url(" data:image="data:image" png="png" base64="base64" ivborw0kggoaaaansuheugaaaaoaaaakcayaaacnms="iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs" aaaagxrfwhrtb2z0d2fyzqbbzg9izsbjbwfnzvjlywr5ccllpaaaafzjrefuef59z4ejadeiq1f36k7u5e7zkxeuqpacj3wk7unokvxvk9khnqh7by9hbdydhnxgjprlqflo4m2ggfyjhhjq8v4agfrgpqx3jtjqgbofmchga="AAAAGXRFWHRTb2Z0d2FyZQBBZG9iZSBJbWFnZVJlYWR5ccllPAAAAFZJREFUeF59z4EJADEIQ1F36k7u5E7ZKXeUQPACJ3wK7UNokVxVk9kHnQH7bY9hbDyDhNXgjpRLqFlo4M2GgfyJHhjq8V4agfrgPQX3JtJQGbofmCHgA" nakks="nAKks" jajfaaaaaelftksuqmcc="JAjFAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" background-position="background-position" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat">GuideStar Entry</a> (may need free registration to view this page)</li>

</ul>

Note that the NTEE classification is "Environmental Quality Protection, Beautification / (Research Institutes and/or Public Policy Analysis)"

<h2 style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); width: auto; background-image: none;">Articles and resources</h2>

<h3 style="margin: 0px 0px 0.3em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom-style: none; width: auto; background-image: none;">Related SourceWatch articles</h3>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Aubrey_McClendon" title="Aubrey McClendon" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Aubrey McClendon</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Branded_News" title="Branded News" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Branded News</a></li>

</ul>

<h3 style="margin: 0px 0px 0.3em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom-style: none; width: auto; background-image: none;">References</h3>

<li id="cite_note-0" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Clean_Skies_Foundation#cite_ref-0" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.cleanskies.org/donations.aspx" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: url(" data:image="data:image" png="png" base64="base64" ivborw0kggoaaaansuheugaaaaoaaaakcayaaacnms="iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs" aaaagxrfwhrtb2z0d2fyzqbbzg9izsbjbwfnzvjlywr5ccllpaaaaivjrefuef6tjzskg0aqhi09mimsfjlczpnycgkbk3gatfuiljacokcczis8mmv2v="AAAAGXRFWHRTb2Z0d2FyZQBBZG9iZSBJbWFnZVJlYWR5ccllPAAAAIVJREFUeF6tjzsKg0AQhi09mimsFJLCzpNYCGKbK3gAtfUIljaCoKCCZIs8MMV2v" ycg8siwlh8zotjhjeaefmeiopdqttrtjnezixhwysinfuljfjjdzgnba="yCg8siWlh8zOtjhjEAEFmeIopDQtTrTJNEZIxhWysiNfULJFJjDzGnba" abt4="aBt4" waubzd="wAuBzD" tg6a8svkxf4get96xmdxnzp39ive="tg6a8SVkXf4GET96xmDxNzP39IvE" ppdtxiyvpyinv14a5f0laj8oyfgaaaaasuvork5cyii="); padding-right: 13px; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat;" xmlns:data="data">"Your Gift Will Have a Lasting Impact"</a>, American Clean Skies Foundation website, accessed May 2008.</li>

<li id="cite_note-1" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Clean_Skies_Foundation#cite_ref-1" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">↑</a> Dina Cappiello, <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.eenews.net/public/climatewire/2008/04/24/1" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: url(" data:image="data:image" png="png" base64="base64" ivborw0kggoaaaansuheugaaaaoaaaakcayaaacnms="iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs" aaaagxrfwhrtb2z0d2fyzqbbzg9izsbjbwfnzvjlywr5ccllpaaaafzjrefuef59z4ejadeiq1f36k7u5e7zkxeuqpacj3wk7unokvxvk9khnqh7by9hbdydhnxgjprlqflo4m2ggfyjhhjq8v4agfrgpqx3jtjqgbofmchga="AAAAGXRFWHRTb2Z0d2FyZQBBZG9iZSBJbWFnZVJlYWR5ccllPAAAAFZJREFUeF59z4EJADEIQ1F36k7u5E7ZKXeUQPACJ3wK7UNokVxVk9kHnQH7bY9hbDyDhNXgjpRLqFlo4M2GgfyJHhjq8V4agfrgPQX3JtJQGbofmCHgA" nakks="nAKks" jajfaaaaaelftksuqmcc="JAjFAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" background-position="background-position" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat" xmlns:data="data">"Natural Gas: Aubrey McClendon's energy 'education' campaign"</a> ClimateWire, April 24, 2008.</li>

<li id="cite_note-2" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Clean_Skies_Foundation#cite_ref-2" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">↑</a> "<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.guidestar.org/pqShowGsReport.do?partner=guidestar&npoId=100897224" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: url(" data:image="data:image" png="png" base64="base64" ivborw0kggoaaaansuheugaaaaoaaaakcayaaacnms="iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs" aaaagxrfwhrtb2z0d2fyzqbbzg9izsbjbwfnzvjlywr5ccllpaaaafzjrefuef59z4ejadeiq1f36k7u5e7zkxeuqpacj3wk7unokvxvk9khnqh7by9hbdydhnxgjprlqflo4m2ggfyjhhjq8v4agfrgpqx3jtjqgbofmchga="AAAAGXRFWHRTb2Z0d2FyZQBBZG9iZSBJbWFnZVJlYWR5ccllPAAAAFZJREFUeF59z4EJADEIQ1F36k7u5E7ZKXeUQPACJ3wK7UNokVxVk9kHnQH7bY9hbDyDhNXgjpRLqFlo4M2GgfyJHhjq8V4agfrgPQX3JtJQGbofmCHgA" nakks="nAKks" jajfaaaaaelftksuqmcc="JAjFAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" background-position="background-position" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat" xmlns:data="data">American Clean Skies Foundation</a>," GuideStar.org, accessed September 2008.</li>

<li id="cite_note-DowCS-3" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">↑ <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Clean_Skies_Foundation#cite_ref-DowCS_3-0" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">4.0</a> <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Clean_Skies_Foundation#cite_ref-DowCS_3-1" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">4.1</a> <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Clean_Skies_Foundation#cite_ref-DowCS_3-2" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">4.2</a> Siobhan Hughes, "<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20080808-712549.html" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: url(" data:image="data:image" png="png" base64="base64" ivborw0kggoaaaansuheugaaaaoaaaakcayaaacnms="iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs" aaaagxrfwhrtb2z0d2fyzqbbzg9izsbjbwfnzvjlywr5ccllpaaaafzjrefuef59z4ejadeiq1f36k7u5e7zkxeuqpacj3wk7unokvxvk9khnqh7by9hbdydhnxgjprlqflo4m2ggfyjhhjq8v4agfrgpqx3jtjqgbofmchga="AAAAGXRFWHRTb2Z0d2FyZQBBZG9iZSBJbWFnZVJlYWR5ccllPAAAAFZJREFUeF59z4EJADEIQ1F36k7u5E7ZKXeUQPACJ3wK7UNokVxVk9kHnQH7bY9hbDyDhNXgjpRLqFlo4M2GgfyJHhjq8V4agfrgPQX3JtJQGbofmCHgA" nakks="nAKks" jajfaaaaaelftksuqmcc="JAjFAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" background-position="background-position" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat" xmlns:data="data">CleanSkies.TV Enjoys Backing of Top Natural Gas Executive</a>," Dow Jones (sub req'd), August 8, 2008.</li>

<li id="cite_note-4" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Clean_Skies_Foundation#cite_ref-4" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">↑</a> Press release, "<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS210568+22-Feb-2008+PRN20080222" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: url(" data:image="data:image" png="png" base64="base64" ivborw0kggoaaaansuheugaaaaoaaaakcayaaacnms="iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs" aaaagxrfwhrtb2z0d2fyzqbbzg9izsbjbwfnzvjlywr5ccllpaaaafzjrefuef59z4ejadeiq1f36k7u5e7zkxeuqpacj3wk7unokvxvk9khnqh7by9hbdydhnxgjprlqflo4m2ggfyjhhjq8v4agfrgpqx3jtjqgbofmchga="AAAAGXRFWHRTb2Z0d2FyZQBBZG9iZSBJbWFnZVJlYWR5ccllPAAAAFZJREFUeF59z4EJADEIQ1F36k7u5E7ZKXeUQPACJ3wK7UNokVxVk9kHnQH7bY9hbDyDhNXgjpRLqFlo4M2GgfyJHhjq8V4agfrgPQX3JtJQGbofmCHgA" nakks="nAKks" jajfaaaaaelftksuqmcc="JAjFAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" background-position="background-position" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat" xmlns:data="data">American Clean Skies Foundation Chairman Aubrey McClendon to Announce Launch Date for New CLEANSKIES.TV Network, Multi-Million Dollar Advocacy Campaign on Clean Energy and Natural Gas,& Findings from New National Polls on Clean Energy</a>," American Clean Skies Foundation / Rational PR via PR Newswire, February 22, 2008.</li>

<li id="cite_note-5" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Clean_Skies_Foundation#cite_ref-5" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">↑</a> Mariah Blake, "Cloudy Skies," Columbia Journalism Review, January / February 2009.</li>

<li id="cite_note-6" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Clean_Skies_Foundation#cite_ref-6" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">↑</a> Bill Dawson, "<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.yaleclimatemediaforum.org/features/0908_shale_tv.htm" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: url(" data:image="data:image" png="png" base64="base64" ivborw0kggoaaaansuheugaaaaoaaaakcayaaacnms="iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs" aaaagxrfwhrtb2z0d2fyzqbbzg9izsbjbwfnzvjlywr5ccllpaaaafzjrefuef59z4ejadeiq1f36k7u5e7zkxeuqpacj3wk7unokvxvk9khnqh7by9hbdydhnxgjprlqflo4m2ggfyjhhjq8v4agfrgpqx3jtjqgbofmchga="AAAAGXRFWHRTb2Z0d2FyZQBBZG9iZSBJbWFnZVJlYWR5ccllPAAAAFZJREFUeF59z4EJADEIQ1F36k7u5E7ZKXeUQPACJ3wK7UNokVxVk9kHnQH7bY9hbDyDhNXgjpRLqFlo4M2GgfyJHhjq8V4agfrgPQX3JtJQGbofmCHgA" nakks="nAKks" jajfaaaaaelftksuqmcc="JAjFAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" background-position="background-position" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat" xmlns:data="data">Natural Gas Firm Going Online With 'Shale.tv' Programming</a>," Yale Forum on Climate Change & the Media, September 4, 2008.</li>

<li id="cite_note-7" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Clean_Skies_Foundation#cite_ref-7" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">↑</a> "<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://cleanskies.com/about-clean-skies" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: url(" data:image="data:image" png="png" base64="base64" ivborw0kggoaaaansuheugaaaaoaaaakcayaaacnms="iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs" aaaagxrfwhrtb2z0d2fyzqbbzg9izsbjbwfnzvjlywr5ccllpaaaafzjrefuef59z4ejadeiq1f36k7u5e7zkxeuqpacj3wk7unokvxvk9khnqh7by9hbdydhnxgjprlqflo4m2ggfyjhhjq8v4agfrgpqx3jtjqgbofmchga="AAAAGXRFWHRTb2Z0d2FyZQBBZG9iZSBJbWFnZVJlYWR5ccllPAAAAFZJREFUeF59z4EJADEIQ1F36k7u5E7ZKXeUQPACJ3wK7UNokVxVk9kHnQH7bY9hbDyDhNXgjpRLqFlo4M2GgfyJHhjq8V4agfrgPQX3JtJQGbofmCHgA" nakks="nAKks" jajfaaaaaelftksuqmcc="JAjFAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" background-position="background-position" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat" xmlns:data="data">About Clean Skies</a>," Clean Skies TV Network website, accessed July 2009.</li>

<li id="cite_note-8" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Clean_Skies_Foundation#cite_ref-8" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">↑</a> Press release, "<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS210568+22-Feb-2008+PRN20080222" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: url(" data:image="data:image" png="png" base64="base64" ivborw0kggoaaaansuheugaaaaoaaaakcayaaacnms="iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs" aaaagxrfwhrtb2z0d2fyzqbbzg9izsbjbwfnzvjlywr5ccllpaaaafzjrefuef59z4ejadeiq1f36k7u5e7zkxeuqpacj3wk7unokvxvk9khnqh7by9hbdydhnxgjprlqflo4m2ggfyjhhjq8v4agfrgpqx3jtjqgbofmchga="AAAAGXRFWHRTb2Z0d2FyZQBBZG9iZSBJbWFnZVJlYWR5ccllPAAAAFZJREFUeF59z4EJADEIQ1F36k7u5E7ZKXeUQPACJ3wK7UNokVxVk9kHnQH7bY9hbDyDhNXgjpRLqFlo4M2GgfyJHhjq8V4agfrgPQX3JtJQGbofmCHgA" nakks="nAKks" jajfaaaaaelftksuqmcc="JAjFAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" background-position="background-position" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat" xmlns:data="data">American Clean Skies Foundation Chairman Aubrey McClendon to Announce Launch Date for New CLEANSKIES.TV Network, Multi-Million Dollar Advocacy Campaign on Clean Energy and Natural Gas & Findings from New National Polls on Clean Energy</a>," American Clean Skies Foundation, February 22, 2008.</li>

<li id="cite_note-9" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Clean_Skies_Foundation#cite_ref-9" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.cleanskies.org/" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: url(" data:image="data:image" png="png" base64="base64" ivborw0kggoaaaansuheugaaaaoaaaakcayaaacnms="iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs" aaaagxrfwhrtb2z0d2fyzqbbzg9izsbjbwfnzvjlywr5ccllpaaaafzjrefuef59z4ejadeiq1f36k7u5e7zkxeuqpacj3wk7unokvxvk9khnqh7by9hbdydhnxgjprlqflo4m2ggfyjhhjq8v4agfrgpqx3jtjqgbofmchga="AAAAGXRFWHRTb2Z0d2FyZQBBZG9iZSBJbWFnZVJlYWR5ccllPAAAAFZJREFUeF59z4EJADEIQ1F36k7u5E7ZKXeUQPACJ3wK7UNokVxVk9kHnQH7bY9hbDyDhNXgjpRLqFlo4M2GgfyJHhjq8V4agfrgPQX3JtJQGbofmCHgA" nakks="nAKks" jajfaaaaaelftksuqmcc="JAjFAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" background-position="background-position" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat" xmlns:data="data">American Clean Skies Foundation</a>, American Clean Skies Foundation website, accessed June 2008</li>

</ol>

<h3 style="margin: 0px 0px 0.3em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom-style: none; width: auto; background-image: none;">External resources</h3>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">"<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.muckety.com/American-Clean-Skies-Foundation-Inc/5028606.muckety" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: url(" data:image="data:image" png="png" base64="base64" ivborw0kggoaaaansuheugaaaaoaaaakcayaaacnms="iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs" aaaagxrfwhrtb2z0d2fyzqbbzg9izsbjbwfnzvjlywr5ccllpaaaafzjrefuef59z4ejadeiq1f36k7u5e7zkxeuqpacj3wk7unokvxvk9khnqh7by9hbdydhnxgjprlqflo4m2ggfyjhhjq8v4agfrgpqx3jtjqgbofmchga="AAAAGXRFWHRTb2Z0d2FyZQBBZG9iZSBJbWFnZVJlYWR5ccllPAAAAFZJREFUeF59z4EJADEIQ1F36k7u5E7ZKXeUQPACJ3wK7UNokVxVk9kHnQH7bY9hbDyDhNXgjpRLqFlo4M2GgfyJHhjq8V4agfrgPQX3JtJQGbofmCHgA" nakks="nAKks" jajfaaaaaelftksuqmcc="JAjFAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" background-position="background-position" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat">American Clean Skies Foundation relationship map</a>," Muckety.com, accessed July 2009.</li>

</ul>

<h3 style="margin: 0px 0px 0.3em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom-style: none; width: auto; background-image: none;">External articles</h3>

</div>

<div id="mw-normal-catlinks" class="mw-normal-catlinks"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Special:Categories" title="Special:Categories" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Categories</a>:

<li style=" margin: 0.125em 0px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1.25em; border-left-style: none; padding: 0px 0.5em 0px 0.25em; zoom: 1;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Category:Climate_change" title="Category:Climate change" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Climate change</a></li>

<li style=" margin: 0.125em 0px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1.25em; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-style: solid; border-left-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0px 0.5em; zoom: 1;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Category:Coal_Issues" title="Category:Coal Issues" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Coal Issues</a></li>

<li style=" margin: 0.125em 0px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1.25em; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-style: solid; border-left-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0px 0.5em; zoom: 1;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Category:Energy" title="Category:Energy" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Energy</a></li>

<li style=" margin: 0.125em 0px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1.25em; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-style: solid; border-left-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0px 0.5em; zoom: 1;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Category:United_States" title="Category:United States" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">United States</a></li>

</ul>

</div>

===

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy

Chesapeake Energy is an Oklahoma-based oil and gas company. It is involved in the controversial practice of <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Fracking" title="Fracking">fracking</a> for methane gas in the Northeastern U.S. in the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Marcellus_Shale" title="Marcellus Shale">Marcellus Shale</a> region. Chesapeake Energy is "the second largest producer of methane gas, a Top 20 producer of fracking liquids and the most active driller of new wells in the U.S."<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-0">[1]</a> Though lauded as an environmentally-friendly alternative to coal, fracking for gas has been linked to depleting drinking water resources of local communities and polluting the wells of the people living around drill sites. According to a 2010 article in Vanity Fair, "as use of the technique (fracking) has spread, it has been followed by incidents of water contamination and environmental degradation, and even devastating health problems." <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-1">[2]</a> And according to data released to the EPA, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Halliburton" title="Halliburton" class="mw-redirect">Halliburton</a>, a major supplier of fracking fluid, admitted using 807,000 gallons of diesel-based chemicals in its fluids, in violation of an agreement drillers had with the EPA.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-2">[3]</a>

<h2 style="">Background</h2>

Chesapeake Energy, and its wholly-owned subsidiary Chesapeake Appalachia LLC headquartered in Charleston, West Virginia, has 1.73 million net acres under lease in the Marcellus shale area and is drilling in 14 states.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-3">[4]</a> According to the Common Cause "Deep Drilling, Deep Pockets" report, Chesapeake has 519 well permits in Pennsylvania.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-4">[5]</a> Its CEO was ranked the 3rd highest paid CEO in the U.S., with an annual compensation of $116.89 million.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-5">[6]</a> The company has been reporting annual revenues of between $7.6 billion and $11.3 billion a year over the past four years. Chesapeake Energy has had numerous lawsuits filed against them for spoiling drinking water by contaminating it with methane gas, cheating landowners out of royalties and evading investors. Chesapeake Energy and its executives have also been very active in making partisan political donations, predominantly in favor of Republicans. This company, headquartered in Oklahoma City, has invested significant funds in elections in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, states with large shale deposits, and its CEO was a major spender in the election of the new governor of Pennsylvania, Tom Corbett.

At the 2011 winter meeting for the Independent Oil and Gas Association, McClendon stated that Chesapeake planned on investing some $40-50 billion in methane gas drilling in West Virginia in the next few decades. He also stated that Chesapeake had already spent some $600 million in capital investment since 2008 in the state.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-6">[7]</a> Fearing the possibility of drilling in West Virginia, the environmental advocacy group, the Southern Environmental Law Center, placed George Washington National Forest on its top 10 endangered places in the Southeast list for 2011, saying that the forest's water, wildlife and other resources could be harmed by fracking.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-7">[8]</a>

In February 2012, the company said it had developed a new method for recycling wastewater from <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Fracking" title="Fracking">fracking</a>. The recycled water will be mixed with fresh water for future fracking operations. Chesapeake requires about 5.8 million gallons of water to fracture the average well, plus sand and toxic chemicals. About 10 percent of that liquid must be pumped from the well before production can begin.

Chesapeake has seven drilling rigs in Ohio and one in western Pennsylvania. It expects to have 20 rigs in Ohio by late 2012 and 30 by 2014. The company said its pre-drilling surveys had detected potentially troublesome levels of methane gas in drinking water in Plain and Osnaburg townships in Stark County. Evidence of the problem was also detected in Pike and Sandy townships.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-8">[9]</a>

<table class="infobox vcard" cellspacing="5" style="width: 22em; text-align: left; line-height: 1.5em;"><caption class="fn org" style="font-weight: bold;">Chesapeake Energy</caption><tbody><tr><td colspan="2" class="logo" style=" text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/File:Chesapeake-Energy-Logo.jpg" class="image"><img src="/a17c3a6e-e192-5966-8234-885de1139ca7.jpg"/></a></td></tr><tr class=""><th style=" text-align: left;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Types_of_companies" class="extiw" title="w:Category:Types of companies">Type</a></th><td class="note">Gas and Oil</td></tr><tr class=""><th style=" text-align: left;">Founded</th><td class="">1989</td></tr><tr class=""><th style=" text-align: left;">Headquarters</th><td class="label">Oklahoma City, OK</td></tr><tr class=""><th style=" text-align: left;">Number of locations</th><td class="">Towanda, Pennsylvania; Charleston, West Virginia; Oklahoma City, OK;</td></tr><tr class=""><th style=" text-align: left;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenue" class="extiw" title="w:Revenue">Revenue</a></th><td class="">9.4 billion</td></tr></tbody></table>

<h2 style="">Chesapeake to Host EPA In Study of Fracking Risk</h2>

In January 2013 it was reported Chesapeake Energy Corp. agreed to let the Environmental Protection Agency conduct extensive tests at one of its drilling sites as part of an investigation into the safety of fracking. The testing, which will involve water sampling before and after drilling takes place, will serve as a cornerstone of a year-long EPA study to determine whether the process known as fracking poses a risk to water supplies.

Natural gas company, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Range_Resources" title="Range Resources">Range Resources</a> also may allow the EPA to work at one of its drilling sites, although an agreement has been held up by researcher liability concerns at a drilling site, a Range Resources spokesman said.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-9">[10]</a>

<h2 style="">Partisan Political Activity</h2>

Although Chesapeake Energy has donated to campaigns on both sides of the aisle, the majority of its political donations has gone to pro-fracking Republicans. 2010 was the biggest year in gas and oil political contributions by corporations hoping to encourage lawmakers to continue with the lax restrictions surrounding methane gas drilling.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-10">[11]</a> Nowhere was this seen more than in Pennsylvania, where the majority of the Macellus Shale area lies. According to MarcellusMoney.org, a project of Common Cause PA and Conservation Voters of Pennsylvania, Chesapeake Energy raised $89,390 for Pennsylvania candidates during the 2009-2010 election season.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-11">[12]</a>

According to the Common Cause "Deep Drilling, Deep Pockets" report, Chesapeake gave $377,319 in lobbying cash to PA politicians from 2007-2009.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-12">[13]</a> Furthermore, in 2010, Chesapeake gave $89,390 in campaign contributions to various politicians running for office in PA state elections. This included some $11,000 to Governor Tom Corbett, who is a known ally of the fracking industry in Pennsylvania. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-13">[14]</a> $10,500 went to his opponent, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Democrat" title="Democrat" class="mw-redirect">Democrat</a> Dan Onorato.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-14">[15]</a>

<h3 style="">Corporate Political Action Committee</h3>

Since its creation in 2004, Chesapeake's PAC has donated major money to candidates, front group PACs and committees. Since the 2004 election year, Chesapeake's PAC has spent $1.46 million.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-15">[16]</a>

Here are some of the politicians and PACs that Chesapeake donated to:

<li>$10,000 to Mary Landrieu (D-LA) who is on the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources</li>

<li>$16,000 to John McCain's presidential campaign</li>

<li>$15,000 to Dan Boren (D-OK) who is co-chair of the Natural Gas Caucus</li>

<li>$10,000 to Tom Cole (R-OK) who authored The Natural Gas Production Act in 2008</li>

<li>$10,000 to Scott Murphy (D-NY)</li>

<li>$10,000 to Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) who is an investor in Clean Energy Fuels Corp. and sponsored the California Renewable Energy & Clean Alternative Fuel Act in California<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-16">[17]</a></li>

<li>$15,000 to John Sullivan (R-OK) who is a member of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. He was also a past member of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-17">[18]</a></li>

<li>10,000 to Tom Coburn (R-OK)</li>

<li>$7,500 to Joe Manchin (D-WV) who was Governor of West Virginia and a supporter of methane gas drilling over coal mining</li>

<li>$7,000 to Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) who is on the U.S. Senate Energy Committee</li>

<li>$15,000 to the National Republican Committee</li>

<li>15,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee</li>

</ul>

<h3 style="">Political Donations by Company Execs</h3>

Senior management has donated large amounts of money to politicians, front group PACs and the Republican National Committee.

<li>Aubrey McClendon - CEO and President - $530,550</li>

</ul>

"The Republican State Leadership Committee, a newly-formed PAC that raised more than $9 million over the previous three years - the bulk of it from corporations, prohibited by state law from contributing to Pennsylvania candidates - said that most of the Corbett money came from McClendon, who had donated $450,000 to the RSLC in separate donations, around the date it was sending money to Corbett. As of last month, Chesapeake had obtained 839 Marcellus drilling permits in Pennsylvania, more than any other company, and had drilled at 126 sites, making it the second-biggest operator after Talisman Energy of Alberta, Canada, according to the state's Department of Environmental Protection"<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-18">[19]</a>

<li>Martha A. Burger - Senior Vice President of Human and Corporate Resources - $38,500</li>

<li>Henry J. Hood - Senior Vice President of Land and Legal and General Counsel - $31,000</li>

<li>Stephen W. Miller - Senior Vice President of Drilling - $30,300</li>

<li>Michael A. Johnson - Senior Vice President of Accounting, Controller and Chief Accounting Officer - $29,500</li>

<li>Steven Dixon - Executive Vice President of Operations and Geosciences and COO - $26,500</li>

<li>Cathy L. Tompkins - Senior Vice President of Information Technology - $25,360</li>

<li>Douglas Jacobson - Executive Vice President of Acquisitions and Divestitures - $20,000</li>

<li>James C. Johnson - Senior Vice President of Energy Marketing - $11,000</li>

<li>Jeffrey L. Mobley - Senior Vice President of Investor Relations and Research - $7,704</li>

<li>Jennifer M. Grigsby - Senior Vice President, Treasurer and Corporate Secretary - $6,669</li>

</ul>

<h3 style="">Lobbying</h3>

In 2009, Chesapeake Energy spent $1.74 million on lobbying. This was done through their PAC, as well as lobbying firms <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.isgwashingtondc.com/index.php">Integrated Solutions Group</a> ($300,000), <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.muckety.com/Chad-Bradley-Associates/5032867.muckety">Chad Bradley & Assoc.</a> ($210,000) and Vinson & Elkins ($190,000).<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-19">[20]</a>

In 2010, Chesapeake upped their lobbying costs to $2.8 million. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/The_Duberstein_Group" title="The Duberstein Group">The Duberstein Group</a> ($100,000) was added to their lobbyist list, as was C2E2 Strategies ($80,000) and <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.deltastrategygroup.com/">Delta Strategy Group</a> ($20,000). Integrated Solutions Group ($150,000) and Chad Bradley & Assoc. ($245,000) rounded out the list.

Chesapeake also uses the same lobbyist as <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Cabot_Oil_and_Gas" title="Cabot Oil and Gas">Cabot Oil and Gas</a>, Peter Gleason of Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Gates.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-20">[21]</a>

<h2 style="">Support for the American Legislative Exchange Council</h2>

Chesapeake was a "Director" level sponsor of 2011 <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Legislative_Exchange_Council" title="American Legislative Exchange Council">American Legislative Exchange Council</a> Annual Conference, which in 2010, equated to $10,000.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-21">[22]</a>

<table style="vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid rgb(201, 215, 240); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><tbody><tr><th style="font-weight: bold; border: 1px solid rgb(64, 127, 212); text-align: left; padding: 0.2em 0.4em; background: rgb(41, 102, 184);">About ALEC</th></tr><tr><td style="">

<div style="padding: 2px 5px;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC" title="ALEC" class="mw-redirect">ALEC</a> is a corporate bill mill. It is not just a lobby or a front group; it is much more powerful than that. Through ALEC, corporations hand state legislators their wishlists to benefit their bottom line. Corporations fund almost all of ALEC's operations. They pay for a seat on ALEC task forces where corporate lobbyists and special interest reps vote with elected officials to approve “model” bills. Learn more at the Center for Media and Democracy's <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://alecexposed.org/">ALECexposed.org</a>, and check out breaking news on our <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.PRWatch.org">PRWatch.org site</a>.</div>

</td></tr></tbody></table>

<h2 style="">Front Groups</h2>

Chesapeake Energy was a supporter of several special interest groups that push for expanded drilling rights and limited or no regulation of <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Fracking" title="Fracking">fracking</a>.

Dave Spigelmyer, Vice President of Government Relations, is on the Board of Directors of <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.wvonga.com/WhoWeAre/BoardofDirectors.aspx">West Virginia Natural Oil and Gas Association</a>, Spigelmyer is also on the Executive Committee of the Marcellus Shale Coalition<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-22">[23]</a>Director Merrill Miller serves on the board of The National Petroleum Council,<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-23">[24]</a> Director Richard K. Davidson is a former member on the <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.dhs.gov/files/committees/biography_0082.shtm">National Infrastructure Advisory Council in the Department of Homeland Security</a>, Thomas S. Price (Divisional Senior VP) is on the Executive Committee of of the <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://nmoga.org/default.asp?CustComKey=361910&CategoryKey=361935&pn=Page&DomName=nmoga.org">New Mexico Oil and Gas Association</a>,<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-24">[25]</a> Thomas Price is also on the Board of the <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.oipa.com/custom/index.php">Oklahoma Independent Petroleum Association</a>,<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-25">[26]</a> Ty Peck and Megan Woodworth of Chesapeake are both Directors of the Natural Gas and Energy Association of Oklahoma,<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-26">[27]</a> Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-27">[28]</a> and Energy in Depth<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-28">[29]</a>

Chesapeake Energy owns the domain for Truthlandmovie.com, a pro-fracking documentary response to <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Gasland" title="Gasland">Gasland</a> promoted by the oil and natural gas industry’s PR arm, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Energy_In_Depth" title="Energy In Depth" class="mw-redirect">Energy In Depth</a>.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-29">[30]</a>

<h2 style="">Taxes and subsidies</h2>

By 2012, Chesapeake Energy made $5.5 billion in pretax profits since its founding 23 years ago, yet only paid about 1 percent ($53 million) of the cumulative pretax profits during that period. According to data compiled by Bloomberg, Chesapeake and other U.S. oil and gas producers have been drawing upon a 1916 rule that allows them to expense “intangible drilling costs,” enabling them to postpone income taxes in recognition of the "inherent risk" of drilling wells that may turn out to be dry, which Bloomberg said "may be outdated for companies such as Chesapeake" due to fracking technologies.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-30">[31]</a>

<h2 style="">Claimed Violations of Safety Rules or Other Laws</h2>

<h3 style="">Health and Safety Violations Alleged</h3>

2012: In October, Chesapeake Energy Corp.'s Marcellus drilling subsidiary Chesapeake Appalachia LLC pleaded guilty to three criminal violations of the federal Clean Water Act for burying a waterfall in West Virginia under 60 tons of gravel to clear a path for fracking trucks in 2008. The company agreed to pay a $600,000 fine and will be on probation and "under supervision of the court" for two years. The parties also agreed that separate violations for impoundments in Marshall and Wetzel counties in WV would be addressed with civil penalties instead of criminal charges. Those violations occurred at three other sites in 2008, 2009, and 2010, court records show.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-31">[32]</a>

2012: In June, Chesapeake Energy settled a lawsuit filed by three families in Bradford County, Pennsylvania, over water contamination. The total payment to the plaintiffs was $1.6 million. The families' attorneys said gas extraction and drilling activities by Chesapeake "contaminated the property and groundwater of these Bradford County residents with excess methane levels that required one family to evacuate their home for two weeks." Following a 2010 investigation by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, Chesapeake was fined $900,000 for contaminating private water supplies in Bradford County due to "improper well casing and cementing in shallow zones." Chesapeake has maintained that the conclusions are clouded by the lack of pre-drill water testing.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-32">[33]</a>

2011: In Aug. 2011, Natural Gas Watch acquired documents through the Freedom of Information Act from the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Environmental_Protection_Agency" title="Environmental Protection Agency" class="mw-redirect">Environmental Protection Agency</a> showed that it had "pumped more than 14 million gallons of fluid to a depth of more than 2 miles at a natural gas well in Bradford County, Pennsylvania, before a blowout sent tens of thousands of gallons of the toxic liquid coursing over fertile farmland and into a nearby creek." The documents also showed that "the fluid Chesapeake used in operations at the well contained more than two dozen chemicals, including methanol, glutaraldehyde, formaldehyde, 2-butoxyethanol and hydrocloric acid. They also specify the amounts used and detail the role each substance played in the hydraulic fracturing process...Chesapeake tried to block the documents’ release, claiming that both were protected from release under the FOIA rules because they constituted proprietary and confidential business information. "<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-33">[34]</a>

An explosion in February sparked a large fire and injured three workers in Independence Township, Washington County, PA. The fire started at a site operated by Chesapeake Appalachia LLC, a subsidiary of Chesapeake Energy. Chesapeake Energy said the incident was not related to fracking and identified the injured workers as Russell Schoolcraft of Clover, W.Va., Richard Lancaster of Sardis, Ohio, and Frank Lancaster of New Martinsville, W.Va.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-34">[35]</a>

2010:" In September, the Pennsylvania DEP began investigating the source of stray methane gas that was detected bubbling from the Susquehanna River and in six private water wells in Bradford County. The DEP believes that nearby wells drilled by Chesapeake Energy are the source of the problem.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-35">[36]</a>

April: The "Pennsylvania Dept. of Transportation revoked Chesapeake Energy’s road use permit for Route 1007 in Bradford County. Chesapeake failed to respond to two notices of unsafe conditions and thus violated their agreement to proactively monitor conditions and repair the road when needed. In March, PennDOT revoked their permit for Route 1001 for the same reasons."<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-36">[37]</a>

March: Chesapeake was fined $20,000 for withdrawing more water from Bradford and Sullivan County public water supplies than its permits allowed. "Under a permit that Chesapeake had obtained from the Susquehanna River Basin Commission, Chesapeake was allowed to withdraw no more than 100,000 gallons per day from the Troy Borough's public water supply, no more than 300,000 gallons per day from Aqua Pennsylvania, and no more than 40,000 gallons per day from the Dushore Water Authority."<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-37">[38]</a>

January: Chesapeake Energy was fined $25,000 when police in Towanda, Pennsylvania discovered a service truck that was more than 41-tons over the weight limit for the road it was on. "This is the latest of numerous examples of state troopers finding overweight natural gas trucks inflicting damage on area roads."<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-38">[39]</a>

September: The Louisiana DEP announced a "pending settlement with Chesapeake Energy and its contractor Schlumberger Technology that would require the companies to pay $22,000 each for the death of 17 heads of cattle near a gas drilling site in Louisiana. The DEP confirmed that high levels of potassium chloride were found in and adjacent to a cow pasture. Findings indicated that a “milky white substance” flowed from the natural gas well and pooled into a low area in the pasture that was accessible to the cows. People who witnessed the deaths reported that the cows appeared to be suffering a slow, painful death, with many bellowing loudly, bleeding and foaming at the mouth."<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-39">[40]</a>

2009: Chesapeake Energy, along with Schlumberger Technology Corp., were both fined $15,557 for a fracking fluids spill in February. Chesapeake notified the DEP that a "21,000-gallon tank containing 36 percent hydrochloric acid was leaking. When a DEP inspector arrived at the site, it was determined that the tank had two leaks and was losing about 7.5 gallons per hour of hydrochloric acid, the DEP said."<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-40">[41]</a> About 126 tons of contaminated soil was excavated, and more than 13,800 gallons of a hydrochloric acid and water mixture were removed from the well site in Bradford County, Pennsylvania.

In 2009, the DEP fined Chesapeake $3,925 for the non-permitted discharge of top-hole water.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-41">[42]</a>

<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.dep.state.pa.us/dep/deputate/minres/oilgas/OGInspectionsViolations/OGInspviol.htm">The Pennsylvania DEP</a> records show that between 2008 - 2011 (as of February), Chesapeake had 168 Administrative and Health and Environmental Safety violations. Some of these violations were for: "Failure to manage residual waste"; "Potential pollution of the waters of the Commonwealth"; Spilled Sodium Hypochlorite"; "Failure to minimize accelerated erosion"; Orange liquid seeping out from underneath heat treater"; "Pit leak that showed soil contained hydraulic fracturing chemicals". The majority of these violations took place in Bradford, Sullivan and Susquehanna Counties.

<h3 style="">Lawsuits</h3>

2011: In March a lawsuit filed in Texas state district court by Dallas-based ICC Energy Corp. claimed that "Chesapeake reneged on a commitment to partner with ICC Energy on the marketing of gas from the Barnett Shale at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. The lawsuit includes claims of discrimination, breach of fiduciary duty, breach of contract, misrepresentation, and fraud against Chesapeake as well as several company subsidiaries and individuals."<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-42">[43]</a> ICC Energy says that Chesapeake approached them in May 2006 about a partnership on a bid for an oil and gas lease covering 18,000 acres of land owned by D/FW Airport and part of the Barnett Shale, the second-largest on-shore domestic methane gas field in the United States. "ICC Energy is the largest African-American-owned marketer of natural gas in Texas."<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-43">[44]</a>

January: Continental Resources filed a breach of contract lawsuit against Chesapeake Energy for failing to complete a $28 million land deal in Michigan. The lawsuit was filed in Garfield County, Oklahoma. "The unconsummated deal was struck in June after an e-mail exchange between Continental CEO Harold Hamm and Chesapeake CEO Aubrey K. McClendon. The lawsuit contends Continental passed up opportunities with other potential buyers when it agreed to sell its Michigan acreage to Chesapeake."<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-44">[45]</a> Continental is seeking damages in excess of $75,000. Apparently, "Chesapeake has delayed or refused to complete other purchases in that region as well, the lawsuit states."

2010: Pennsylvania residents filed a lawsuit against Chesapeake and Nomac Drilling contending "that a natural gas drilling operation established in 2009 in Terry Township, Bradford County, contaminated a ground well that provided the main water supply to the plaintiffs' residence. The lawsuit contends that methane, ethane, barium and other pollutants and substances were discharged as a result of the gas well drilling operation, and contaminated the ground and aquifer near the plaintiffs' home and into the ground water well used as a water supply."<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-45">[46]</a> The lawsuit says that residents have suffered financial damage to their homes "and the water and premises are contaminated with dangerously high and explosive levels of methane, causing great diminution of value to their home and real property."<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-46">[47]</a> The plaintiffs demanded their case be heard before a judge and jury and are seeking "a permanent injunction, barring Chesapeake and its affiliates from any future gas drilling in the immediate area of their home, compensation for any past and future medical costs, as well as damages for the diminution of their property."

September: A woman from Texas filed a federal class-action lawsuit against subsidiaries of Chesapeake Energy Corp. "Robyn Coffey says the company shortchanged royalty owners in the methane gas-rich Barnett Shale. She says Chesapeake owes more than $5 million to royalty owners because of the way the company has calculated payments to them. The lawsuit claims instead of paying royalty owners based on the full market value of natural gas, the company transferd the gas to Chesapeake Energy at a "fictitious price" that is substantially less than the price obtained when Chesapeake sells the gas to a 'bona fide third-party purchaser.'"<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-47">[48]</a>

2009: In February an investor of Chesapeake Energy Corporation filed a lawsuit seeking class action status in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York on "behalf of those who purchased Chesapeake Energy Corporation stock pursuant to the registration statement and prospectus (collectively, the "Registration Statement") filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission in connection with Chesapeake's July 2008 secondary offering." The lawsuit claims that Chesapeake "violated federal securities laws. Specifically, the Registration Statement issued in connection with the Offering was materially false because it failed to disclose the following: (i) Chesapeake's exposure to natural gas price declines had not been adequately limited by Chesapeake's hedging actions prior to the Offering; (ii) that Chesapeake had entered into hedging contracts with Lehman Brothers, an underwriter in the offering, though based on Lehman Brothers' rapidly declining financial condition, it would be unable to fulfill its financial commitment; (iii) prior to the Offering, Chesapeake's aggressive hedging activities had been significantly running up the price of natural gas and Chesapeake's stock price; (iv) Chesapeake's lease brokers, had been aggressively bidding up the prices Chesapeake was obligated to pay in leases and royalty agreements; and (v) Chesapeake was failing to write down impaired goodwill on the assets it was acquiring."<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-48">[49]</a>

<h2 style="">Revenue and Profits</h2>

2010<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-49">[50]</a>

Revenue: $9.36 billion

Gross Profit: $4.76 billion

2009<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-50">[51]</a>

Revenue: $7.7 billion

Gross Profit: $4.22 billion

2008<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-51">[52]</a>

Revenue: $11.63 billion

Gross Profit: $6.8 billion

2007<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-52">[53]</a>

Revenue: $7.8 billion

Gross Income: $4.9 billion

2006<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-53">[54]</a>

Revenue: $7.33 billion

Gross Income: $5.1 billion

<h2 style="">Executives and Annual Compensation</h2>

<li>CEO <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Aubrey_McClendon" title="Aubrey McClendon">Aubrey McClendon</a>: $116.89 million in total compensation and is #3 on Forbes highest-paid CEOs list.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-54">[55]</a></li>

<li>Executive Vice President of Operations and Geosciences and COO Steven C. Dixon: $4.6 million<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-55">[56]</a></li>

<li>Executive Vice President of Acquisitions and Divestitures: $4.4 million<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-56">[57]</a></li>

</ul>

The average employee at Chesapeake makes $114,084 a year.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-57">[58]</a>

<h3 style="">CEO Aubrey McClendon</h3>

In 2008, McClendon made headlines when he was awarded a $77 million bonus even though stocks fell 60 percent. Shareholders filed a lawsuit against McClendon, claiming "Chesapeake’s board of directors ignored the company’s compensation policies when it approved a renegotiated contract in December 2008 that awarded McClendon a $75 million incentive award above his annual bonus of $1.9 million, granted more than $20 million in stock awards and agreed to purchase an art collection worth $12.1 million."<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-58">[59]</a> The bonus and new contract came after McCelndon was forced to sell 94 percent of his shareholdings over 3 consecutive days. McClendon won dismissal of the case in February 2010 when "Oklahoma District Court Judge Twyla Mason Gray found that the shareholders failed to make a demand on the Chesapeake defendants before filing the lawsuit, a requirement for such claims. She rejected arguments by shareholder lawyers that such a demand would have been futile."<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-59">[60]</a> McClendon is the 371st wealthiest American with a net worth of $1 billion as of 2010.

According to Rolling Stone:

<dd>When the fracking revolution began, [Aubrey] McClendon says, he and [landman Tom] Ward quickly realized that the new technique offered them an opening. In the natural gas industry, the advantage had long gone to operators with the geological and engineering expertise to pinpoint gas reservoirs. Now it didn't matter where you drilled – the gas was pretty much evenly distributed throughout the earth's deep shale layers. The edge suddenly belonged to operators who could lock up as much land as quickly and as cheaply as possible – precisely the skill that Ward and McClendon had developed scraping around Oklahoma land deeds. In 1989, the two men chipped in $50,000 to form a new company, Chesapeake Energy, to focus primarily on shale gas. It grew like a Silicon Valley startup: By 1993, when Chesapeake went public, the firm was valued at $25 million.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-60">[61]</a></dd>

</dl>

<h2 style="">Senior Executives</h2>

<li>Aubrey K. McClendon: Chairman of the Board and CEO - He is also in the chair of the board of directors of the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Front_group" title="Front group" class="mw-redirect">front group</a> <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Clean_Skies_Foundation" title="American Clean Skies Foundation">American Clean Skies Foundation</a>. The channel produces what is notoriously known as <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Branded_News" title="Branded News">Branded News</a>. "McClendon is a Co-Founder and has been the Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of Chesapeake Energy Corp. since 1989. He is a Managing Partner and Founder of Deep Fork Capital. From 1982 to 1989, McClendon was an independent producer of oil and gas in affiliation. He has been a Director of Chesapeake Energy Corp. since 1989. McClendon also serves as a Member of Advisory Board of Eagle Energy Partners, Inc."<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-61">[62]</a></li>

<li>Steven C. Dixon: Executive Vice President – Operations and Geosciences and COO - Dixon has been COO since February 13, 2006 and has been its Executive Vice President since February 2010. He served as Executive Vice President of Operations at Chesapeake Energy Corporation since February 13, 2006 until February 2010. Dixon served as Senior Vice President of Production at Chesapeake Energy Corp. from 1995 to February 13, 2006 and served as Vice President—Exploration from 1991 to 1995. He was a self-employed geological consultant in Wichita, Kansas from 1983 through 1990. He was also employed by Beren Corporation in Wichita, Kansas from 1980 to 1983 as a geologist.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-62">[63]</a></li>

<li>Douglas J. Jacobson: Executive Vice President - Acquisitions and Divestitures - "Jacobson has been Executive Vice President since April 2006. Prior to joining Chesapeake, he was employed by Samson Investment Company from 1980 until 1999, where he served as Senior Vice President of Project Development and Marketing from 1996 to 1999. Jacobson was also employed by Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co. He has served on various Oklahoma legislative commissions which have addressed issues in the fracking and oil industry, including the Commission of Oil and Gas Production Practices and the Natural Gas Policy Commission."<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-63">[64]</a></li>

<li>Domenic J. Dell'Osso, Jr.: Executive Vice President and CFO - Dell'Osso has been CFO "since October 29, 2010. He serves as Assistant Controller of Cooper Industries Ltd. and as Vice President of Finance and Chief Financial Officer of Chesapeake Midstream Development, L.P., a subsidiary of Chesapeake Energy Corporation. He served as Senior Vice President of Chesapeake Energy Corporation since October 29, 2010. Before joining Chesapeake in 2008, Dell'Osso worked at Jefferies & Co. and Banc of America Securities as an energy investment banker. He has been Director of Frac Tech Services, LLC since October 29, 2010. Dell'Osso is the designee of Chesapeake Energy Corporation."<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-64">[65]</a></li>

<li>Martha A. Burger: Senior Vice President of Human and Corporate Resources - Burger has been at her current position since March 2007. "Her prior positions with Chesapeake included Treasurer from 1995 to March 2007, Senior Vice President of Human Resources from 2000 to March 2007 and Vice President of Human Resources from 1998 to 2000. Burger was employed by Hadson Corporation as Assistant Treasurer from 1989 to 1993 and served as Vice President and Controller of Hadson Corporation from 1993 to 1994. Prior to joining Hadson Corporation, she was employed by The Phoenix Resource Companies, Inc. as Assistant Treasurer and by Arthur Andersen & Co.</li>

<li>Jeffrey A. Fisher: Senior Vice President of Production - Fisher has been Senior Vice President of Production since February 2006. He was Vice President—Operations for Chesapeake’s Southern Division from July 2005 to February 2006 and served as Operations Manager from 2003 to July 2005. Prior to joining Chesapeake, Fisher held the position of Asset Manager for <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/BP" title="BP">BP</a> from 2000 to 2003. From 1993 to 2000, He worked for Vastar Resources as Engineering Manager. He is a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-65">[66]</a></li>

<li>Jennifer M. Grigsby: Senior Vice President, Treasurer and Corporate Secretary- "Grigsby has served as Senior Vice President and Treasurer since March 2007 and as Corporate Secretary since 2000. She served as Vice President from April 2006 to March 2007 and as Assistant Treasurer from 1998 to March 2007. From 1995 to 1998, she served in various accounting positions with Chesapeake. Grigsby was employed by Commander Aircraft Company as Supervisor of Finance and Human Resources from 1994 to 1995 and by Deloitte & Touche LLC from 1991 to 1994."<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-66">[67]</a></li>

<li>Henry J. Hood: Senior Vice President of Land and Legal and General Counsel - "Hood was appointed General Counsel in April 2006, and has served as Senior Vice President of Land and Legal since 1997. He served as Vice President of Land and Legal from 1995 to 1997. Hood was associated with the law firm of White, Coffey, Galt & Fite from 1992 to 1995. He was associated with or a partner of the law firm of Watson & McKenzie from 1987 to 1992. He is a member of the Oklahoma and Texas Bar Associations.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-67">[68]</a></li>

<li>James C. Johnson: Senior Vice President of Energy Marketing - "Johnson has served as President of Chesapeake Energy Marketing, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Company, since 2000. He served as Vice President of Contract Administration for Chesapeake from 1997 to 2000 and as Manager of Contract Administration from 1996 to 1997. From 1980 to 1996, Johnson held various gas marketing and land positions with Enogex, Inc., Delhi Gas Pipeline Corporation, TXO Production Corp. and Gulf Oil Corporation. Johnson is also a member of the Natural Gas & Energy Association of Oklahoma.</li>

<li>Michael A. Johnson: Senior Vice President of Accounting, Controller and Chief Accounting Officer - "Johnson has been President of Chesapeake Energy Marketing, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Chesapeake Energy Corporation, since 2000. He served as Vice President of Contract Administration at Chesapeake Energy Corp., from 1997 to 2000 and as Manager of Contract Administration from 1996 to 1997. From 1980 to 1996, Mr. Johnson held various gas marketing and land positions with Enogex, Inc., Delhi Gas Pipeline Corporation, TXO Production Corp. and Gulf Oil Corporation. Johnson is also a member of the Natural Gas Association of Oklahoma."<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-68">[69]</a></li>

<li>Stephen W. Miller: Senior Vice President of Drilling - "Stephen has served as Senior Vice President of Drilling since 2001. He served as Vice President of Drilling from 1996 to 2001 and as District Manager of College Station District from 1994 to 1996. Miller held various engineering positions in the fracking and oil industry from 1980 to 1993. Miller is a registered Professional Engineer and a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers."<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-69">[70]</a></li>

<li>Jeffrey L. Mobley: Senior Vice President of Investor Relations and Research - Mobley "has been Senior Vice President of Investor Relations and Research since February 2006 and was Vice President of Investor Relations and Research from May 2005 to February 2006. From 2002 to May 2005, he was Vice President of Equity Research at Raymond James & Associates focusing on the exploration and production sector. From 1998 to 2002, Mobley worked in energy investment banking for Prudential Securities and ABN Amro Securities. He also worked in the Principal Investments Group and Energy Finance Group at <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Enron" title="Enron" class="mw-redirect">Enron</a> Capital & Trade Resources from 1995 to 1998."<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-70">[71]</a></li>

<li>Thomas S. Price, Jr.: Senior Vice President of Corporate Development & Government Relations - Price "has served as Senior Vice President of Corporate Development and Government Relations since April 2005. He was Senior Vice President of Investor and Government Relations from April 2003 to April 2005. He was employed by Kerr-McGee Corporation, Oklahoma City, from 1988 to 1989 and by Flag-Redfern Oil Company from 1984 to 1988. Price is on the executive committee of the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association and a board member of the Oklahoma Independent Petroleum Association.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-71">[72]</a></li>

<li>J. Mike Stice: Senior Vice President of Natural Gas Projects and Chief Executive Officer Chesapeake Midstream Partners, L.P. - "Stice operates all of Chesapeake's gathering and processing assets outside of Appalachia, and is also responsible for Chesapeake's various initiatives focused on increasing the demand for Chesapeake's fracking production. He served as Chief Executive Officer of Chesapeake Midstream Partners LLC. and as President of Chesapeake Midstream Partners, L.P. of Chesapeake Energy Corp. since November 2008. Stice was President of Chesapeake Energy Corp. He also served as Chief Operating Officer of Chesapeake Midstream Partners, L.P. He previously spent 27 years with <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ConocoPhillips" title="ConocoPhillips">ConocoPhillips</a> and served as President of ConocoPhillips Qatar, where he was responsible for the development, management and construction of natural gas liquefaction and regasification (LNG) projects. At ConocoPhillips, he also served as Vice President of Global Gas LNG, as President of Gas & Power and President of Energy Solutions in addition to other roles in ConocoPhillips' midstream business units."<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-72">[73]</a></li>

<li>Cathy L. Tompkins: Senior Vice President of Information Technology - Tompkins "was appointed Senior Vice President of Information Technology and Chief Information Officer in January 2006. She served as Vice President of Information Technology from July 2005 to January 2006. Prior to joining Chesapeake, Tompkins spent 20 years in IT management and technical positions at various companies including Devon Energy Corporation, Ocean Energy, Inc., <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Cabot_Oil_and_Gas" title="Cabot Oil and Gas">Cabot Oil and Gas</a> Corporation, Price Waterhouse LLP and <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Royal_Dutch_Shell" title="Royal Dutch Shell" class="mw-redirect">Royal Dutch Shell</a> Oil Company.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_note-73">[74]</a></li>

</ul>

<h1 style="">Contact Information</h1>

Corporate Headquarters

Chesapeake Energy Corporation

P.O. Box 18496

Oklahoma City, OK 73154-0496

(405) 935-8000

Revenue Payments

revinquiry@chk.com

Inquiry Line: (877) CHK-1GAS

Fax: (405) 879-9558

<h2 style="">Articles and Sources</h2>

<h3 style="">External Resources</h3>

<h2 style="">Related SourceWatch Articles</h2>

<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/New_York_and_fracking" title="New York and fracking">New York and fracking</a>

Source Watch has a special clearinghouse on fracking, <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Portal:Water">Fracking for Gas</a>.

<h1 style="">References</h1>

<li id="cite_note-0"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-0">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.chk.com/About/Pages/Default.aspx">"Chesapeake Energy Web site"</a></li>

<li id="cite_note-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-1">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2010/06/fracking-in-pennsylvania-201006">"A Colossal Fracking Mess"</a>, Vanity Fair 2010.</li>

<li id="cite_note-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-2">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/11/halliburton-fracking-epa">"Fracking Halliburton"</a>, Mother Jones.</li>

<li id="cite_note-3"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-3">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.chk.com/Operations/Pages/Default.aspx">"Areas of Operation"</a>, CHK.com</li>

<li id="cite_note-4"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-4">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.commoncause.org/atf/cf/%7Bfb3c17e2-cdd1-4df6-92be-bd4429893665%7D/MARCELLUSSHALESTUDY.PDF">"Deep Drilling, Deep Pockets"</a>, Common Cause 2010 Report</li>

<li id="cite_note-5"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-5">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.forbes.com/lists/2008/12/lead_bestbosses08_Aubrey-K-McClendon_MSFH.html">"Forbes CEO Rankings"</a></li>

<li id="cite_note-6"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-6">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.theintelligencer.net/page/content.detail/id/551077/Company-To-Invest--50-Billion-In-W-Va-.html?nav=515">"Company To Invest $50 Billion In W.Va."</a>, The Intelligencer - Wheeling News-Register, Jan. 22, 2011.</li>

<li id="cite_note-7"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-7">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/274182">"Va. national forestland makes endangered list."</a>, The Ronaoke Times. Jan. 19, 2011.</li>

<li id="cite_note-8"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-8">↑</a> Bob Downing, <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.ohio.com/news/local/chesapeake-unveils-system-to-recycle-waste-water-from-fracking-drill-sites-1.264011">"Chesapeake unveils system to recycle waste water from ‘fracking’ drill sites"</a> Ohio.com, February 9, 2012.</li>

<li id="cite_note-9"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-9">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.rigzone.com/news/oil_gas/a/123748/Chesapeake_Energy_to_Host_EPA_in_Study_of_Fracking_Risk_to_Water">"Chesapeake Energy to Host EPA in Study of Fracking Risk to Water"</a> Dow Jones Newswire, January 24, 2013.</li>

<li id="cite_note-10"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-10">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2010/06/fracking-in-pennsylvania-201006">"A Colossal Fracking Mess"</a>, Vanity Fair 2010</li>

<li id="cite_note-11"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-11">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.marcellusmoney.org/company/chesapeake">"MarcellusMoney.org Chesapeake Energy Donations"</a></li>

<li id="cite_note-12"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-12">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.commoncause.org/atf/cf/%7Bfb3c17e2-cdd1-4df6-92be-bd4429893665%7D/MARCELLUSSHALESTUDY.PDF">"Deep Drilling, Deep Pockets"</a>, CommonCause.org 2010 Report</li>

<li id="cite_note-13"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-13">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.marcellusmoney.org/company/chesapeake">"MarcellusMoney.org Chesapeake Energy Donations"</a></li>

<li id="cite_note-14"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-14">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://marcellusmoney.org/company/chesapeake">"MarcellusMoney.org Chesapeake"</a></li>

<li id="cite_note-15"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-15">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00389288">"Open Secrets Chesapeake Data"</a></li>

<li id="cite_note-16"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-16">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://selfinvestors.com/tradingstocks/news/the-pelosi-pickens-profit-plan-with-clean-energy-fuels-clne/">"The Pelosi & Pickens Profit Plan With Clean Energy Fuels (CLNE)"</a>, Self Investors.com</li>

<li id="cite_note-17"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-17">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://maplight.org/us-congress/legislator/480-john-sullivan">"John Sullivan on MapLight.com"</a></li>

<li id="cite_note-18"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-18">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.eriedems.com/?q=node/989">"Corbett leads everyone in gas-industry donations"</a></li>

<li id="cite_note-19"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-19">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?year=2010&lname=Chesapeake+Energy&id=">"Open Secrets Chesapeake Energy Lobbying Expenses"</a></li>

<li id="cite_note-20"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-20">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.newsinferno.com/fracking/hydraulic-fracturing-lobbyists-advising-incoming-pennsylvania-governor-tom-corbett/">"Hydraulic Fracturing Lobbyists Advising Incoming Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett"</a>, News Inferno.com</li>

<li id="cite_note-21"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-21">↑</a> American Legislative Exchange Council, 2011 Conference Sponsors, conference brochure on file with CMD, August 11, 2011</li>

<li id="cite_note-22"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-22">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://marcelluscoalition.org/about/executive-committee/">"Marcellus Shale Coalition Board Members"</a></li>

<li id="cite_note-23"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-23">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.npc.org/">"The National Petroleum Council Members"</a></li>

<li id="cite_note-24"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-24">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.dailyfinance.com/company/chesapeake-energy-corporation/chk/nys/key-executives">"Chesapeake Energy Corp Information"</a></li>

<li id="cite_note-25"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-25">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.dailyfinance.com/company/chesapeake-energy-corporation/chk/nys/key-executives">"Chesapeake Energy Corp Information"</a></li>

<li id="cite_note-26"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-26">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.ngeao.org/mc/page.do?sitePageId=60904&orgId=ngeao">"NGEAO Officers and Directors"</a></li>

<li id="cite_note-27"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-27">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://crg.iogcc.org/communication-resource-guide/8/15">"Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission"</a></li>

<li id="cite_note-28"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-28">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.energyindepth.org/about/">"Energy in Depth"</a></li>

<li id="cite_note-29"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-29">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://blog.littlesis.org/2012/06/13/fracking-industrys-answer-to-gasland-devised-by-astroturf-lobbying-group-and-political-ad-agency/">"Fracking Industry’s Answer to “Gasland”: Devised by Astroturf Lobbying Group and Political Ad Agency,"</a> LittleSis, June 13, 2012.</li>

<li id="cite_note-30"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-30">↑</a> Zachary Mider, Bradley Olson, Jesse Drucker and and Todd White, <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-02/cheaspeake-s-1-tax-rate-shows-cost-of-drilling-subsidy.html">"Chesapeake’s 1% Tax Rate Shows Cost of Drilling Subsidy,"</a> Bloomberg, July 2, 2012.</li>

<li id="cite_note-31"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-31">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://wvgazette.com/News/201210050181">"Chesapeake to pay $600K for waterfall destruction,"</a> Charleston Gazette, October 5, 2012.</li>

<li id="cite_note-32"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-32">↑</a> Alex Cameron, <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.news9.com/story/18875665/chesapeake-settles-with-pennsylvania-landowners">"Chesapeake Settles With Pennsylvania Landowners,"</a> Oklahoma Impact Team, June 25, 2012.</li>

<li id="cite_note-33"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-33">↑</a> [<a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="http://www.naturalgaswatch.org/?p=800">http://www.naturalgaswatch.org/?p=800</a> "The Documents Chesapeake Energy Doesn’t Want You To See." Natural Gas Watch. NaturalGasWatch.org. Aug. 11, 2011. Accessed Aug. 16, 2011.</li>

<li id="cite_note-34"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-34">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.wtae.com/r/26973100/detail.html">"WTAE Pittsburgh Explosion Report"</a>, WTAE 2010</li>

<li id="cite_note-35"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-35">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.lhup.edu/rmyers3/marcellus.htm">"Environmental Dangers of Hydro-Fracturing"</a>, Lock Haven University Study</li>

<li id="cite_note-36"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-36">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://alleghenysc.org/?p=2022">"Sierra Club Marcellus Shale Wall of Shame"</a></li>

<li id="cite_note-37"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-37">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://thedailyreview.com/news/chesapeake-energy-fined-20-000-over-water-withdrawal-violations-1.696315">"Chesapeake Energy fined $20,000 over water withdrawal violations"</a>, The Daily Review 2010</li>

<li id="cite_note-38"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-38">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://dothemountain.wordpress.com/2010/02/01/flag-this-message-pa-police-catch-gas-company-truck-41-tons-over-weight-limit/">"AP Report on Over Weight Dumping Track"</a>, Do the Mountain Blog</li>

<li id="cite_note-39"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-39">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.riverkeeper.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Fractured-Communities-FINAL-September-2010.pdf">"Riverkeeper Report"</a></li>

<li id="cite_note-40"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-40">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://thedailyreview.com/news/dep-fines-chesapeake-appalachia-schlumberger-for-acid-spill-in-asylum-twp-1.468922">"DEP fines Chesapeake Appalachia, Schlumberger for acid spill in Asylum Twp."</a>, The Daily Review 2009"</li>

<li id="cite_note-41"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-41">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.dep.state.pa.us/dep/deputate/minres/oilgas/OGInspectionsViolations/OGInspviol.htm">"PA DEP Records"</a></li>

<li id="cite_note-42"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-42">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.swtriallaw.com/press-releases/sayles-werbner-provost-umphrey-announce-lawsuit-against-chesapeake-energy-2.html">"Sayles Werbner, Provost Umphrey Announce Lawsuit Against Chesapeake Energy Corp."</a>, Texas Law Press Release</li>

<li id="cite_note-43"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-43">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.swtriallaw.com/press-releases/sayles-werbner-provost-umphrey-announce-lawsuit-against-chesapeake-energy-2.html">"Sayles Werbner, Provost Umphrey Announce Lawsuit Against Chesapeake Energy Corp."</a>, Texas Law Press Release</li>

<li id="cite_note-44"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-44">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://newsok.com/continental-resources-suing-chesapeake-energy-over-stalled-land-deal/article/3539657">"Continental Resources suing Chesapeake Energy over stalled land deal"</a>, Oklahoma News.com</li>

<li id="cite_note-45"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-45">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.energydelta.org/mainmenu/edi-intelligence/latest-energy-news/lawsuit-filed-against-chesapeake">"Lawsuit filed against Chesapeake"</a>, The Daily Review 2010</li>

<li id="cite_note-46"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-46">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://thedailyreview.com/news/lawsuit-filed-against-chesapeake-1.1075687">"Lawsuit filed against Chesapeake"</a>, The Daily Review 2010</li>

<li id="cite_note-47"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-47">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://northoklahomacity.kfor.com/content/class-action-lawsuit-filed-against-chesapeake-energy">"Class action lawsuit filed against Chesapeake Energy"</a>, North Oklahoma KFOR</li>

<li id="cite_note-48"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-48">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/Izard-Nobel-LLP-Announces-Class-Action-Lawsuit-Against-Chesapeake-Energy-Corporation-NYSE-CHK-955604.htm">"Izard Nobel LLP Announces Class Action Lawsuit Against Chesapeake Energy Corporation"</a>, Marketwire.com</li>

<li id="cite_note-49"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-49">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/financials/financials.asp?ticker=CHK:US">"Bloomberg Business Week Financials"</a></li>

<li id="cite_note-50"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-50">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/financials/financials.asp?ticker=CHK:US">"Bloomberg Business Week Financials"</a></li>

<li id="cite_note-51"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-51">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/financials/financials.asp?ticker=CHK:US">"Bloomberg Business Week Financials"</a></li>

<li id="cite_note-52"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-52">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/financials/financials.asp?ticker=CHK:US">"Bloomberg Business Week Financials"</a></li>

<li id="cite_note-53"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-53">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/CHK/financials">"MarketWatch Chesapeake Energy Filings"</a></li>

<li id="cite_note-54"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-54">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.forbes.com/lists/2008/12/lead_bestbosses08_Aubrey-K-McClendon_MSFH.html">"CEO Compensation"</a>, Forbes.com</li>

<li id="cite_note-55"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-55">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://investing.businessweek.com/businessweek/research/stocks/people/person.asp?personId=323873&ticker=CHK:US&previousCapId=323857&previousTitle=CHESAPEAKE%20ENERGY%20CORP">"Business Week Steven Dixon Bio"</a></li>

<li id="cite_note-56"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-56">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/snapshot/snapshot.asp?ticker=CHK:US">"Bloomberg Business Week"</a></li>

<li id="cite_note-57"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-57">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.pennenergy.com/index/petroleum/display/7311943407/articles/pennenergy/petroleum/finance/2011/01/oil-and_gas_companies.html">"Oil and gas companies rank in top tier for compensation"</a>, Penn Energy. Jan. 25, 2011.</li>

<li id="cite_note-58"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-58">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aECTzsYY1R3Y">"Chesapeake CEO Wins Dismissal of Investors’ Excess Pay Lawsuit"</a>, Bloomberg News 2008</li>

<li id="cite_note-59"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-59">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aECTzsYY1R3Y">"Chesapeake CEO Wins Dismissal of Investors’ Excess Pay Lawsuit"</a>, Bloomberg News 2008</li>

<li id="cite_note-60"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-60">↑</a> Jeff Goodell, <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-big-fracking-bubble-the-scam-behind-the-gas-boom-20120301#ixzz1nsiReXOB">"The Big Fracking Bubble: The Scam Behind the Gas Boom,"</a> Rolling Stone, March 1, 2012.</li>

<li id="cite_note-61"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-61">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://investing.businessweek.com/businessweek/research/stocks/people/person.asp?personId=323859&ticker=CHK:US&previousCapId=323857&previousTitle=CHESAPEAKE%20ENERGY%20CORP">"Business Week Aubrey McClendon Bio"</a></li>

<li id="cite_note-62"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-62">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://investing.businessweek.com/businessweek/research/stocks/people/person.asp?personId=323873&ticker=CHK:US&previousCapId=323857&previousTitle=CHESAPEAKE%20ENERGY%20CORP">"Business Week Steven Dixon Bio"</a></li>

<li id="cite_note-63"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-63">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.chk.com/About/ManagementTeam/Pages/Douglas-Jacobson.asp">"Chesapeake Energy Jacobson Bio"</a></li>

<li id="cite_note-64"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-64">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://investing.businessweek.com/businessweek/research/stocks/people/person.asp?personId=25004517&ticker=CHK:US&previousCapId=323857&previousTitle=CHESAPEAKE%20ENERGY%20CORP">"Business Week Domenic Dell'Osso Bio"</a></li>

<li id="cite_note-65"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-65">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.chk.com/About/ManagementTeam/Pages/Jeff-Fisher.aspx">"Chesapeake Jeffery Fisher Bio"</a></li>

<li id="cite_note-66"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-66">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.chk.com/About/ManagementTeam/Pages/Jennifer-Grigsby.aspx">"Jennifer Grigsby Chesapeake Bio"</a></li>

<li id="cite_note-67"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-67">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.chk.com/About/ManagementTeam/Pages/Henry-Hood.aspx">"Henry Hood Chesapeake Bio"</a></li>

<li id="cite_note-68"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-68">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://investing.businessweek.com/businessweek/research/stocks/people/person.asp?personId=1151254&ticker=CHK:US&previousCapId=323857&previousTitle=CHESAPEAKE%20ENERGY%20CORP">"Bloomberg Business Week Bio"</a></li>

<li id="cite_note-69"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-69">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.chk.com/About/ManagementTeam/Pages/Stephen-Miller.aspx">"Stephen Miller Chesapeake Bio"</a></li>

<li id="cite_note-70"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-70">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.chk.com/About/ManagementTeam/Pages/Jeff-Mobley.aspx">"Jeffery Mobley Chesapeake Bio"</a></li>

<li id="cite_note-71"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-71">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.chk.com/About/ManagementTeam/Pages/Tom-Price.aspx">"Chesapeake Thomas Price Bio"</a></li>

<li id="cite_note-72"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-72">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://investing.businessweek.com/businessweek/research/stocks/people/person.asp?personId=50018622&ticker=CHK:US&previousCapId=323857&previousTitle=CHESAPEAKE%20ENERGY%20CORP">"Business Week J. Mike Stice Bio"</a></li>

<li id="cite_note-73"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chesapeake_Energy#cite_ref-73">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.chk.com/About/ManagementTeam/Pages/Cathy-Tompkins.aspx">"Cathy Tompkins Chesapeake Bio"</a></li>

</ol>

</div>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Category:ALEC_Exposed" title="Category:ALEC Exposed">ALEC Exposed</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Category:Energy" title="Category:Energy">Energy</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Category:Fracking" title="Category:Fracking">Fracking</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Category:Water" title="Category:Water">Water</a></li>

</ul>

</div>

pac 2012

<table class="sortable" id="table1" style=""><tbody><tr class=" even"><td><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00236489">Koch Industries</a></td><td><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup.php?strName="> </a>

</td><td class="number">$1,756,000</td><td class="number">$38,000</td><td class="number">$1,718,000</td></tr><tr class="rowTint"><td><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00121368">Exxon Mobil</a></td><td><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup.php?strName="> </a>

</td><td class="number">$1,679,000</td><td class="number">$140,500</td><td class="number">$1,538,500</td></tr><tr class=" even"><td><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00389288">Chesapeake Energy</a></td><td><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup.php?strName="> </a>

</td><td class="number">$1,208,000</td><td class="number">$169,500</td><td class="number">$1,038,500</td></tr><tr class="rowTint"><td><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00035006">Chevron Corp</a></td><td><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup.php?strName="> </a>

</td><td class="number">$697,000</td><td class="number">$57,500</td><td class="number">$639,500</td></tr><tr class=" even"><td><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00109546">Valero Energy</a></td><td><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup.php?strName="> </a>

</td><td class="number">$661,000</td><td class="number">$42,500</td><td class="number">$618,500</td></tr><tr class="rowTint"><td><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00246306">Independent Petroleum Assn of America</a></td><td><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup.php?strName="> </a>

</td><td class="number">$576,000</td><td class="number">$26,000</td><td class="number">$550,000</td></tr><tr class=" even"><td><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00035691">Halliburton Co</a></td><td><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup.php?strName="> </a>

</td><td class="number">$489,000</td><td class="number">$36,500</td><td class="number">$452,500</td></tr><tr class="rowTint"><td><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00496307">Marathon Petroleum</a></td><td><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup.php?strName="> </a>

</td><td class="number">$466,500</td><td class="number">$26,500</td><td class="number">$440,000</td></tr><tr class=" even"><td><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00354753">Devon Energy</a></td><td><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup.php?strName="> </a>

</td><td class="number">$444,500</td><td class="number">$6,000</td><td class="number"> </td></tr></tbody></table>

2. Stolen Land

What happens if you’re a land owner who lives on a profitable mineral site, but doesn’t want corporations fracking on your land? Well, apparently, they will maneuver a way to frack your land anyway.

In a new <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/02/us-chesapeake-landgrab-substory-idUSBRE8910E920121002">report</a> [5] published last week, Reuters explored oil and gas companies’ nationwide land grab. The report focused on Chesapeake Energy Corporation, which has become the leader in petitioning state agencies when land owners refuse to sign over their land to fracking or oil drilling companies. In Texas, since 2005, Chesapeake had made 1,628 requests to drill on land that owners refuse to lease— nearly twice as many sought by its rival Exxon Mobil — and the state has only rejected five of them.

Chesapeake has made land-leasing one of its top priorities, controlling 15 million acres and spending more than $31 billion to acquire drilling rights. Playing the land grab game allows corporations to attain prospective drilling locations while locking out competition. With such a profitable opportunity, Chesapeake is making sure it’s getting its way by any means necessary. One employee was even caught saying on tape: “If properties don't want to sign, if we have 90 percent secured of the well that we need, we have the power to put these people in the lease without their permission. …We can do whatever we want.”

When it comes to profit, property rights just don’t seem to matter. And a mix of money in politics, as well as a desire for profit, has weakened regulation.

"I don't think the state should be able to take a landowner's rights to generate a profit for a private company," said David Conrad, an Ohio resident who opposes fracking, but will soon have a Chesapeake well under his home.

However, as Reuters reported:

In its petition, Chesapeake told regulators its proposed drilling unit could produce 4.5 million barrels of oil and 3.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas — if the plots of the 49 land owners who didn't lease their property to Chesapeake were included.

If not, Chesapeake said, the unit would be 75 percent less productive and would miss out on an additional $71 million in revenue, according to its application. That math carried the day. alternet

==

<div class="asset-body" style="">Aubrey McClendon, the embattled CEO of Chesapeake Energy who's embroiled in a corporate governance scandal, has worked to cultivate friends here in Washington. He may <a target="_blank" href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/02/us-chesapeake-doj-probe-idUSBRE8411IB20120502">need them</a>.

<div><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/index.php">OpenSecrets.org</a> data shows that in the current election cycle, McClendon has personally made more than $107,900 in contributions to political campaigns and party committees. His wife, Kathleen, has given nearly $66,000 on top of that.

</div>

<div>McClendon is largely credited with growing Chesapeake into the second-largest natural gas company in the United States. Besides being one of the <a target="_blank" href="http://www.forbes.com/lists/2012/12/ceo-compensation-12_Aubrey-K-McClendon_MSFH.html">best paid CEOs</a> in America (in 2008 he was the highest-paid, taking home $112 million), McClendon was allowed to take a personal stake in the oil and gas wells his company drilled, according to recent reports.

But McClendon was recently stripped of his title as Chesapeake's chairman after <a target="blank" href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/09/us-eig-chesapeake-mcclendon-idUSBRE8471H020120509">further revelations</a> that he borrowed $1.4 billion from a private equity group that was also buying assets from Chesapeake, and that he was operating a hedge fund trading on oil and gas futures (a market that Chesapeake's actions regularly effect). Critics also accuse McClendon of having too many outside interests -- besides his hedge fund, he personally owns a 19 percent stake in the Oklahoma Thunder basketball team, several television stations, a cancer treatment center and a <a target="blank" href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304451104577390231768951056.html">roadside attraction that sells 200 brands of soda</a>.</div>

<div>

</div>

<div>The McLendons have concentrated their donations on top Republicans (in fact, the only Democrat to receive any money from the pair was West Virginia Sen. <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00032838&cycle=2012">Joe Manchin</a>, who received $4,800). The couple has given $61,600 to the <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/parties/totals.php?cycle=2012&cmte=RNC">Republican National Committee</a>, $55,000 to the <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00075820&cycle=2012">National Republican Congressional Committee</a> and $10,000 to the <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00027466&cycle=2012">National Republican Senatorial Committee</a>. </div>

<div>

</div>

<div>

They have also given a combined $10,000 to Rep. <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00004133&cycle=2012">Fred Upton</a> (R-Mich.), the chairman of the powerful <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/cmteprofiles/overview.php?cmteid=H07&cmte=HENE&congno=112&chamber=H">House Energy and Commerce Committee</a>, which has oversight over issues central to Chesapeake's interests. And besides that, Upton is a first cousin of McClendon's wife -- and, according to OpenSecrets.org data, an investor in Chesapeake: in 2010, he held <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/pfds/CIDsummary.php?CID=N00004133&year=2010">a stake worth between $150,000 and $350,000</a>.

===

<table><tbody><tr><td align="left" nowrap="nowrap"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/firmsum.php?id=D000021908&year=2012">Chesapeake Energy</a></td><td class="center">-</td><td class="number">$490,000</td></tr><tr class="rowTint"><td align="left" nowrap="nowrap"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/firmsum.php?id=D000021879&year=2012">Bracewell & Giuliani</a></td><td class="center">-</td><td class="number">$100,000</td></tr><tr><td align="left" nowrap="nowrap"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/firmsum.php?id=D000000698&year=2012">Duberstein Group</a></td><td class="center">-</td><td class="number">$100,000</td></tr><tr class="rowTint"><td align="left" nowrap="nowrap"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/firmsum.php?id=D000060612&year=2012">Chad Bradley & Assoc</a></td><td class="center">-</td><td class="number">$80,000</td></tr><tr><td align="left" nowrap="nowrap"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/firmsum.php?id=D000064231&year=2012">Delta Strategy Group</a></td><td class="center">-</td><td class="number">$40,000</td></tr><tr class="rowTint"><td>  </td><td>  </td><td class="number">$320,000</td></tr></tbody></table>

</div>

<div>

</div>

<div>The couple has been politically active for some time, but the contributions so far this cycle represent a new level of interest -- in 2010, they gave $56,100, and in 2008, $92,200.</div>

<div>

</div>

<div>The McLendons can afford to be generous; Forbes estimated Aubrey's net worth as <a target="_blank" href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2011/10/05/aubrey-mcclendon-chesapeake-billionaire-wildcatter-shale/">north of $1.2 billion</a> last year. But Chesapeake itself also has been something of a powerhouse in

Washington. OpenSecrets.org data shows that the company spent about <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D000021908&year=2012">$490,000 lobbying</a> in the first three months of this year, and about $2 million in 2011.

Chesapeake lobbied Congress, naturally, but it also <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientagns.php?id=D000021908&year=2012">lobbied some of the same agencies</a> that might now be looking at McClendon's business transactions -- such as the <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/agencysum.php?id=088">Securities and Exchange Commission</a> and the <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/agencysum.php?id=045">Commodity Futures Trading Commission</a>. </div>

<div>

</div>

<div>Chesapeake Energy's <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00389288&cycle=2012">company PAC</a> has also been a major player on Capitol Hill. So far this year, the PAC has dished out over $848,000 -- mostly to the <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pacgot.php?cycle=2012&cmte=C00389288">campaigns of Republicans</a>. The company has given the maximum allowable -- $5,000 -- to 18 members of the House of Representatives. It also gave $30,000 to the National Republican Congressional Committee and National Republican Senatorial Committee, and another $15,000 to Speaker of the House John Boehner's leadership PAC.

The largest contribution by the company's PAC, however, was $125,000 to Make Us Great Again, the super PAC that backed Rick Perry's bid for the Republican presidential nomination.</div>

<div>

</div>

<div>The PAC's presence in Washington has grown along with the company's profile. It has already surpassed the amount it gave in the entire 2010 cycle -- $758,541 -- and more than doubled the $399,279 it gave in 2008. The PAC has also been raising significantly more than it's spending, which means that despite the record amount it has given this election cycle, it's still sitting on a war chest of $1.1 million.</div>

<div>

<div>While McClendon's actions have infuriated some shareholders, it's not clear if he broke any rules. Regulators are investigating. Depending on their findings, or if McClendon's activities ignite a new furor over CEO compensation and corporate governance, his investments in Washington could pay some important dividends.</div>

</div>

<h4 class="entry-categories-header">Categories:</h4>

<li class="entry-category"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/news/politicians-elections/congress/">Congress</a>,</li>

<li class="entry-category"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/news/politicians-elections/congressional-committees/">Congressional Committees</a>,</li>

<li class="entry-category"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/news/influence-lobbying/">Influence & Lobbying</a>,</li>

<li class="entry-category"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/news/politicians-elections/personal-finances/">Personal Finances</a>,</li>

<li class="entry-category"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/news/politicians-elections/">Politicians & Elections</a></li>

</ul>

</div>

<li class="entry-tag"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/MT/mt-search.cgi?blog_id=8&tag=Aubrey%20McClendon&limit=20&IncludeBlogs=8" rel="tag">Aubrey McClendon</a>,</li>

<li class="entry-tag"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/MT/mt-search.cgi?blog_id=8&tag=Chesapeake%20Energy&limit=20&IncludeBlogs=8" rel="tag">Chesapeake Energy</a>,</li>

<li class="entry-tag"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/MT/mt-search.cgi?blog_id=8&tag=Commodity%20Futures%20Trading%20Commission&limit=20&IncludeBlogs=8" rel="tag">Commodity Futures Trading Commission</a>,</li>

<li class="entry-tag"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/MT/mt-search.cgi?blog_id=8&tag=Fred%20Upton&limit=20&IncludeBlogs=8" rel="tag">Fred Upton</a>,</li>

<li class="entry-tag"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/MT/mt-search.cgi?blog_id=8&tag=House%20Energy%20and%20Commerce&limit=20&IncludeBlogs=8" rel="tag">House Energy and Commerce</a>,</li>

<li class="entry-tag"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/MT/mt-search.cgi?blog_id=8&tag=Joe%20Manchin&limit=20&IncludeBlogs=8" rel="tag">Joe Manchin</a>,</li>

<li class="entry-tag"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/MT/mt-search.cgi?blog_id=8&tag=National%20Republican%20Congressional%20Committee&limit=20&IncludeBlogs=8" rel="tag">National Republican Congressional Committee</a>,</li>

<li class="entry-tag"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/MT/mt-search.cgi?blog_id=8&tag=National%20Republican%20Senatorial%20Committee&limit=20&IncludeBlogs=8" rel="tag">National Republican Senatorial Committee</a>,</li>

<li class="entry-tag"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/MT/mt-search.cgi?blog_id=8&tag=Republican%20National%20Committee&limit=20&IncludeBlogs=8" rel="tag">Republican National Committee</a>,</li>

<li class="entry-tag"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/MT/mt-search.cgi?blog_id=8&tag=Russ%20Choma&limit=20&IncludeBlogs=8" rel="tag">Russ Choma</a>,</li>

<li class="entry-tag"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/MT/mt-search.cgi?blog_id=8&tag=Securities%20and%20Exchange%20Commission&limit=20&IncludeBlogs=8" rel="tag">Securities and Exchange Commission</a></li>

</ul>

</div>

* Delayed response to warning signs contributed

Mechanical failures at wellhead also a factor

May 10 (Reuters) - Chesapeake Energy's delayed response to warning signs at a natural gas well contributed to a blowout in Wyoming in April, which led to a leak and the evacuation of dozens of nearby residents, state regulators said on Thursday.

Chesapeake's "delay in observation of and response to a gain in drilling mud in the pits during the running of the production casing prior to the incident," was a contributing factor in the eventual loss of control at the well, according to a Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission report.

It said that "improper engagement of wellhead lockdown pins" also contributed to the blowout, which was eventually triggered by a mechanical failure at the surface of the well.

partner with

<h1 id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading" style="">Plains Exploration & Production</h1>

<div id="siteSub" style="">From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia</div>

<div id="jump-to-nav" class="mw-jump">Jump to: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plains_Exploration%26_Production#mw-head">navigation</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plains_Exploration%26_Production#p-search">search</a></div>

<table><caption class="fn org">Plains Exploration & Production Company</caption><tbody><tr class=""><td colspan="2" class="logo" style=" text-align: center;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PXP-Company-logo.PNG" class="image" title="Plains Exploration & Production"><img src="/367238a3-334d-50b9-8296-ed9a25cdff4b.png"/></a></td></tr><tr class=""><th scope="row" style=" text-align: left;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Types_of_business_entity" title="Types of business entity">Type</a></th><td class="category"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_company" title="Public company">Public company</a></td></tr><tr class=""><th scope="row" style=" text-align: left;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ticker_symbol" title="Ticker symbol">Traded as</a></th><td class=""><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Stock_Exchange" title="New York Stock Exchange">NYSE</a>: <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.nyse.com/about/listed/quickquote.html?ticker=pxp">PXP</a></td></tr><tr class=""><th scope="row" style=" text-align: left;">Industry</th><td class="category">Oil and gas</td></tr><tr class=""><th scope="row" style=" text-align: left;">Founded</th><td class="">2002</td></tr><tr class=""><th scope="row" style=" text-align: left;">Headquarters</th><td class="label"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houston,_TX" title="Houston, TX" class="mw-redirect">Houston</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas" title="Texas">TX</a>, USA</td></tr><tr class=""><th scope="row" style=" text-align: left;">Area served</th><td class="">North America</td></tr><tr class=""><th scope="row" style=" text-align: left;">Key people</th><td class="agent">James C. Flores

(Chairman), (President) & (CEO)</td></tr><tr class=""><th scope="row" style=" text-align: left;">Products</th><td class=""><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrochemical" title="Petrochemical">Petrochemical</a>

Natural gas</td></tr><tr class=""><th scope="row" style=" text-align: left;">Revenue</th><td class=""><img src="/9823f4ca-6b61-598d-8b69-2ca15e0d92d1.png"/> US$ 2.403 billion (2008)</td></tr><tr class=""><th scope="row" style=" text-align: left;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earnings_before_interest_and_taxes" title="Earnings before interest and taxes">Operating income</a></th><td class=""><img src="/936f343d-74d6-58b3-b04f-87ff040f5ddd.png"/> US$ 2.627 billion (2008)</td></tr><tr class=""><th scope="row" style=" text-align: left;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_income" title="Net income">Net income</a></th><td class=""><img src="/9a051b33-4d2e-5e78-ab8c-62addfb6f819.png"/> US$ 0.709 billion (2008)</td></tr><tr class=""><th scope="row" style=" text-align: left;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset" title="Asset">Total assets</a></th><td class=""><img src="/3ddded0e-0fd4-531e-a6a1-863461c99ab6.png"/> US$ 7.112 billion (2008)</td></tr><tr class=""><th scope="row" style=" text-align: left;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equity_%28finance%29" title="Equity (finance)">Total equity</a></th><td class=""><img src="/0b4ea1bb-bdc3-5cab-acc3-58b40a2e5509.png"/> US$ 2.377 billion (2008)</td></tr><tr class=""><th scope="row" style=" text-align: left;">Employees</th><td class="">806 (2009)</td></tr><tr class=""><th scope="row" style=" text-align: left;">Website</th><td class=""><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.pxp.com/">PXP.com</a></td></tr></tbody></table>

Plains Exploration & Production (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Stock_Exchange" title="New York Stock Exchange">NYSE</a>: <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.nyse.com/about/listed/quickquote.html?ticker=pxp">PXP</a>) is an American petroleum company based in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houston,Texas" title="Houston, Texas" class="mw-redirect">Houston, Texas</a>. A spin-off from Plains Resources, Inc., the company was founded in 2002. Its operations, as of 2009, were all in North America, including California, Texas, Louisiana, Wyoming, and offshore of California and in the Gulf of Mexico. The company reported proved reserves of 292 million barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) at the end of 2008, with a potential total of over 2.2 billion BOE. In 2007, they were the fourth-largest oil producer in California (behind <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevron_Corp." title="Chevron Corp." class="mw-redirect">Chevron Corp.</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aera_Energy_LLC" title="Aera Energy LLC" class="mw-redirect">Aera Energy LLC</a>, and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occidental_Petroleum" title="Occidental Petroleum">Occidental Petroleum</a>).<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plains_Exploration%26_Production#cite_note-0">[1]</a>

big donor to flores of texas

<h2>Contents</h2>

</div>

<ul>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-1"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plains_Exploration_%26_Production#History">1 History</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-2"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plains_Exploration_%26_Production#Subsidiaries">2 Subsidiaries</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-3"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plains_Exploration_%26_Production#Operations">3 Operations</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-4"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plains_Exploration_%26_Production#Notes">4 Notes</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-5"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plains_Exploration_%26_Production#External_links">5 External links</a></li>

</ul>

</td></tr></tbody></table>

<h2>History</h2>

Plains Exploration & Production (PXP) was a spinoff from Plains Resources Inc., to which it was a subsidiary prior to 2002. Plains Resources at that time was a midstream production and transport company, but they spun off their exploration component on December 18, 2002 in order to focus on marketing, storage, transport, and terminalling of crude oil.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plains_Exploration%26_Production#cite_note-10K03-1">[2]</a> PXP grew further through the 2003 acquisition of 3TEC for approximately $313 million, and they acquired Nuevo Energy in May 2004 for $945 million. These acquisitions gave them petroleum-producing assets scattered throughout the southwest and California.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plains_Exploration%26_Production#cite_note-10K03-1">[2]</a>

<h2>Subsidiaries</h2>

As of the beginning of 2008, Plains had numerous subsidiaries, including Arroyo Grande Land Company LLC (as Plains runs the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Arroyo_Grande_Oil_Field&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Arroyo Grande Oil Field (page does not exist)">Arroyo Grande Oil Field</a> in San Luis Obispo County, California); Nuevo Energy, Nuevo Resources, and Nuevo International; Latigo Petroleum; Montebello Land Company; and Pogo Producing Company, which has branches outside the U.S. (Alberta, New Zealand, Vietnam).<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plains_Exploration_%26_Production#cite_note-2">[3]</a>

<h2>Operations</h2>

As indicated by its name, Plains is primarily an oil and gas exploration and production company, and has many active petroleum fields in the United States, offshore in the Gulf of Mexico, as well as a prospect offshore of Vietnam. The company's stated strategy is to develop mature fields with a long reserve life, occasionally adding new prospects to maintain a consistent cash flow.

As of 2009, their core holdings were gas fields in Wyoming and Colorado; oil and gas fields in Texas, Louisiana, and the Gulf of Mexico; and oil fields in California, both onshore and offshore.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plains_Exploration%26_Production#cite_note-3">[4]</a> In California they are a principal operator on numerous fields, from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cymric_Oil_Field" title="Cymric Oil Field">Cymric</a> and the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Belridge_Oil_Field" title="South Belridge Oil Field">South Belridge</a> in Kern County to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Inglewood_Oil_Field&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Inglewood Oil Field (page does not exist)">Inglewood</a> in Los Angeles County. Many of their active operations are in the Los Angeles basin directly underneath Los Angeles and adjacent cities. Plains reported 2,602 active oil wells in 2008 in California alone.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plains_Exploration%26_Production#cite_note-2008rpt-4">[5]</a>

A joint venture in 2008 with partner <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chesapeake_Energy" title="Chesapeake Energy">Chesapeake Energy</a> has given Plains a strong position in the development of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haynesville_Shale" title="Haynesville Shale">Haynesville shale gas play</a> in northwestern Louisiana as well as extreme eastern Texas and southwestern Arkansas. At the end of 2008, Plains had 113,000 acres (460 km²) and 50 drilling rigs in conjunction with Chesapeake.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plains_Exploration_%26_Production#cite_note-5">[6]</a> As of late 2010, Plains will have closed on the purchase of approximately 60,000 net acres in the Eagle Ford oil and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_condensate" title="Gas condensate" class="mw-redirect">gas condensate</a> windows in South Texas.

Plains attempted to negotiate a complex compromise deal in Santa Barbara County with environmental groups and state regulators in which the firm would be able to drill into the undeveloped Tranquillon Ridge, off the western coast of the county, in return for their decommissioning and doing environmental restoration on the old and mostly played-out <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lompoc_Oil_Field" title="Lompoc Oil Field">Lompoc Oil Field</a>, which consists of approximately 3,700 acres (15 km²) of ecologically-sensitive habitat adjacent to the Burton Mesa Ecological Preserve. As part of the deal, Plains would drill into Tranquillon Ridge only from their existing Platform Irene, and would retire the platform entirely in 2022. The project would give the state of California $2 billion in tax revenues during that time, and Santa Barbara County about $350 million. The County Board of Supervisors voted to approve the project and sent it on to the State Lands Commission, which rejected it by a 2 to 1 vote on January 29, 2009, citing the unenforcability of the sunset clause.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plains_Exploration_%26_Production#cite_note-indy1-6">[7]</a>

In May 2009, however, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger revived the project by including it in a revised budget proposal.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plains_Exploration%26_Production#cite_note-indy2-7">[8]</a> While this proposal did not pass, Plains has not given up, announcing that they would continue to try to persuade voters and legislators of the merits of the exchange.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plains_Exploration%26_Production#cite_note-ISA-8">[9]</a>

<h2>Notes</h2>

<li id="cite_note-0"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plains_Exploration_%26_Production#cite_ref-0">^{</a></span}> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="ftp://ftp.consrv.ca.gov/pub/oil/annual_reports/2008/PR06_Annual_2008.pdf">California Department of Conservation, 2008 Annual Report</a></li>

<li id="cite_note-10K03-1">^ <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plains_Exploration%26_Production#cite_ref-10K03_1-0">a</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plains_Exploration%26_Production#cite_ref-10K03_1-1">b</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.secinfo.com/d14D5a.134ap.htm">SEC Filing: Form 10-K/A, December 31, 2003</a></li>

<li id="cite_note-2"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plains_Exploration_%26_Production#cite_ref-2">^{</a></span}> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.secinfo.com/d14D5a.t16jz.s.htm">Plains Exploration & Production Form 10-K SEC filing for 2007; full list of subsidiaries</a></li>

<li id="cite_note-3"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plains_Exploration_%26_Production#cite_ref-3">^{</a></span}> Plains Exploration & Production Co., Form 10-K, for period ending December 31, 2008</li>

<li id="cite_note-2008rpt-4"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plains_Exploration_%26_Production#cite_ref-2008rpt_4-0">^{</a></span}> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="ftp://ftp.consrv.ca.gov/pub/oil/annual_reports/2008/PR06_Annual_2008.pdf">"2008 Report of the state oil & gas supervisor"</a>. Department of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources. California Department of Conservation. 2009. Retrieved January 3, 2010. pp. 145–146</li>

<li id="cite_note-5"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plains_Exploration_%26_Production#cite_ref-5">^{</a></span}> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://stocks.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/2010/Skys-The-Limit-In-The-Haynesville-Shale-GDP-GMXR-UNT-ECA-PXP0112.aspx">Haynesville Shale article at Investopedia</a></li>

<li id="cite_note-indy1-6"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plains_Exploration_%26_Production#cite_ref-indy1_6-0">^{</a></span}> Stewart, Ethan (January 29, 2009). <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.independent.com/news/2009/jan/29/pxp-deal-defeated/">"PXP Deal Defeated"</a>. Santa Barbara Independent. Retrieved January 5, 2010.</li>

<li id="cite_note-indy2-7"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plains_Exploration_%26_Production#cite_ref-indy2_7-0">^{</a></span}> Roberts, Jerry (May 14, 2009). <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.independent.com/news/2009/may/14/tranquillon-ridge-project-returns/">"Tranquillon Ridge Project Returns"</a>. Santa Barbara Independent. Retrieved January 5, 2010.</li>

<li id="cite_note-ISA-8"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plains_Exploration_%26_Production#cite_ref-ISA_8-0">^{</a></span}> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewiStockNews/articleid/3372242">"PXP's Tranquillon Ridge Project Update"</a>. PRNewswire-FirstCall; iStockAnalyst. July 26, 2009. Retrieved January 5, 2010.</li>

</ol>

</div>

<h2>External links</h2>

<ul>

<li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.pxp.com">Plains Exploration & Production</a></li>

</ul>

</div>

</div>

</div></div>

Chesapeake Energy Gp

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