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November 20

Taking a view from the middle in the debate over natural gas

Seamus McGraw says he’s not against drilling per se. He wants energy independence.

By Matt Hughes mhughes@timesleader.com
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WILKES-BARRE – In the polarized debate surrounding development of the Marcellus Shale, where supporting either the gas companies or their environmentalist opponents risks attack from the other side, Seamus McGraw seems a rare figure: a man who wants to stand in the middle.

McGraw, a Monroe County native, has written a book titled “The End of Country,” about natural gas drilling and its consequences in and around Dimock, Susquehanna County.

The Institute for Energy and Environmental Research invited McGraw to speak at Wilkes University Saturday and offer his perspective on the emergent gas industry’s presence in Pennsylvania and the debate it has stirred.

McGraw said he doesn’t view the gas companies, as their opponents have depicted them, as moustache-twirling industrial barons quibbling about straws and milkshakes. Nor does he see the industry in its self-styled guise of the flag-brandishing cowboy sowing prosperity and energy independence in our quaking frontier towns.

He sees the gas companies as corporations; machines with the singular function of making profit, much the same as any other company, and said it is in everyone’s best interest to view and treat them that way.

McGraw said gas companies are developing new technologies every day that can greatly reduce the risk of environmental damage and the industry’s carbon footprint. The problem is that they aren’t applying them, by and large, because they have no monetary incentive to do so.

“They are not motivated by the better angels of their nature; they are not,” McGraw said. “But we need to use the instincts that they’ve got… You appeal to greed.”

Doing so could begin with a severance tax on gas extraction with a rate that could be reduced for companies that employ green practices like converting their diesel fleet trucks to run on cleaner-burning gas and fashioning sturdier gas-well casings.

Though “frightened and hesitant,” McGraw said he ultimately supports domestic gas drilling, mainly because he doesn’t want more American soldiers to fight wars “defending someone else’s oil.”

It’s also important to remember, he said, that the world’s non-renewable resources are running out and that global warming is a real concern, a point he drove home at the start of his speech by tossing to the floor a 19.6-pound bag of coal representing the energy the average American consumes daily.

“There are real perils to developing the Marcellus,” he said. “But when we talk about risks, we need to view those risks in context.”

Some of his opinions clearly didn’t sit well with many of roughly the 30 who attended the lecture, among them both opponents and backers of local drilling.

McGraw held an hour-long discussion after reading a chapter from his book, and some challenged his assertions and his figures.

But at the very least, McGraw gave the crowd something to think about, and that’s exactly what the Institute hoped for in inviting him to speak, Associate Director Ken Klemow said.

“Our goal is to bring in people with different philosophies on energy and the Marcellus Shale in the interest of better educating the public,” Klemow said.

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