Last fall when Michael Bloomberg’s private foundation made a $6-million grant to promote stronger regulation of natural-gas drilling, he won applause from several environmental groups.
But the New York mayor also lit a few flames among activists and grant makers who believe that fracking, the intensive energy-extraction method also called hydraulic fracturing, will never be safe, no matter how it is regulated.
Some grant makers, including those backed by Mr. Bloomberg and the financier Julian Roberston Jr., see natural gas obtained through fracking as preferable to other fossil fuels, especially coal, that contribute to climate change and as a possible “bridge fuel” to clean and renewable energy, such as solar and wind power. That camp believes that proper federal and state regulations can limit fracking’s harmful side effects.
A second camp, which includes the family fund created by Google Chairman Eric Schmidt and the Chorus Fund, a new grant maker pouring $40-million into fracking issues, is concerned about environmental and health effects of the practice. That faction supports nonprofits that rally the public against the technique.
Little Regulation
Fracking, developed a decade ago, is now practiced in more than 30 states.
“Because fracking is lightly regulated, if at all, it’s bringing energy politics right into people’s neighborhoods,” says Kathy Sessions, director of the Health and Environmental Funders Network, a grant makers’ group. “Many foundations are worried that communities might see this extreme form of extraction spread too quickly for people to get a handle on.”
A survey done last year by the group found that its member foundations made a total of $18-million in grants to groups working to stop fracking, to step up research into its effects, or to inform the public and policy makers about it.
“The actual dollar figure is probably higher than that,” says Ms. Sessions. “The starting place for many foundations is to get local communities to understand the issue better. There is growing support to programs that increase communication or support research.”
Ensuring Safety
Mr. Bloomberg welcomes the wide-ranging economic benefits a fracking boom can bring as well as the potential of natural gas to reduce the use of coal and its effects on global warming.
Still, he wrote in an e-mail to The Chronicle, “it’s clear we need stricter regulation. That means oversight of everything from well sealing to fracking fluid so that we can ensure the safety of the air, land, and water wherever fracking takes place.”
The Bloomberg grant to the Environmental Defense Fund, one of the largest environmental groups in the nation, supports advocacy to strengthen regulations at the federal level as well as in several states where fracking occurs. That grant, along with money from the Energy Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and the Robertson Foundation, will also help the group spearhead research and get industry people and residents talking together about ways to head off environmental problems.
Other grant makers are taking a similar approach at the state level, including the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation. (Mr. Mitchell, who died in July, developed the hydraulic-fracturing process.)
The Mitchell fund, based near Houston, has made $13-million in grants in the past two years to strengthen drilling laws in Texas, spur scientific investigations into pollution, and encourage utility companies and activists to discuss ways to make natural-gas drilling safe while advocating for more development of renewable energy.
Air and Water
Some anti-fracking activists applaud efforts to strengthen regulations. But others say that isn’t enough and that the Environmental Defense Fund’s approach will do more harm than good. They argue that methane leaks from fracking will poison freshwater aquifers, cause air pollution, and speed climate change. They want the practice banned.
Change.org and other groups have organized petition drives to dissuade Mr. Bloomberg from supporting fracking and the Environmental Defense Fund.
“EDF is filling a role that’s closer to what industry’s interests are in hopes their strategy will lead to regulatory reform,” says Lauren Davis, a program associate at the 11th Hour Project, a program of the Schmidt Family Foundation that advocates for renewable energy. “It’s especially challenging for those of us fighting fracking when a big voice like theirs is out there.”
Leaders at the Environmental Defense Fund counter that now is the time to negotiate with industry and governments, before fracking overruns states ill-equipped to deal with its possible health and environmental side effects.
“I’ve certainly heard that criticism, but I’m not buying it,” says Mark Brownstein, chief counsel of the energy program at the Environmental Defense Fund. “We’ve been very clear about the need for strong regulation, clean air and water, and the need to understand and deal with methane leaks. I’m very comfortable that we’re doing all we can to bring about a low-carbon energy future. Despite what some people say, fracking isn’t going anywhere.”
Working for a Ban
But other grant makers are working to make fracking disappear.
The 11th Hour Project, which makes about $3-million in grants annually to grass-roots groups nationwide to fight fracking, has focused its efforts in states such as California, Maryland, and New York, where moratoriums have been issued or court battles against energy companies are being waged.
Support for local groups has also come from the Heinz Endowments, the New York Community Trust, and the Park Foundation, a grant maker in Ithaca, N.Y., that has spent $5-million on anti-fracking work since 2008.
Activists have worked to get more information on fracking to the public, through either the news media or documentaries like “Gasland” and its new sequel, which was supported by the 11th Hour Project and Park.
Foundation leaders, including those at the Heinz Endowments and Park, say they have faced well-financed and nationwide campaigns from the oil and gas industries that portray them as anti-energy and as environmental fanatics.
Some say they have been attacked on blogs run by people and groups supported by the oil and gas industry.
“They want to find a large institution to vilify and to create a conspiracy around this,” says Jon Jensen, the leader at Park.
Blog posts have questioned whether the grant maker’s founder, the late media mogul Roy Park, would have backed groups opposed to fracking. “I’ve been worried that this kind of thing might have a chilling effect on foundations,” says Mr. Jensen.
Foundations haven’t often been able to muster much resistance to industry claims about fracking’s ecological impact, some say, because foundations lack the resources to fight against a rich industry.
Foundation Shake-Up
Grant makers also lack a unified force to counteract what the industry publishes. In part because the effects of fracking are not fully known, Heinz has found itself working on several sides of the issue.
It has handed out $12-million in the past four years to groups in western Pennsylvania that have opposed fracking as well as to efforts involving citizen surveillance of fracking operations, academic research into effects on the environment and health, and a clinic to treat people who may be suffering headaches, nosebleeds, and rashes connected to gas drilling.
A recent shake-up at Heinz resulted in the firing of Caren Glotfelty, the longtime director of its environmental grant making, and has led some observers to question whether Heinz will now lean toward industry.
A June report by the Public Accountability Initiative, a corporate watchdog group, also raised concerns, noting that Robert Vagt, Heinz’s president, sits on the board of the energy-pipeline firm Kinder Morgan. The company has done extensive fracking work in western Pennsylvania, where Heinz makes most of its grants. Mr. Vagt also holds $1.2-million in company stock.
A Heinz spokeswoman would not comment on the potential conflict of interest but says that the endowments’ grant making has not changed since Ms. Glotfelty’s dismissal.
Along with the William Penn Foundation, Heinz is supporting a group that is pushing for safer standards for fracking. Made up of representatives from industry, former government officials (including the one-time chief of the Environmental Protection Agency, Christine Todd Whitman), and environmental groups, the Center for Sustainable Shale Development this year announced 15 performance standards it wants gas companies drilling in Pennsylvania to follow.
Five environmental groups, including the Environmental Defense Fund, sit on the center’s board. “We have a long history of working with companies to find common ground,” says Mr. Brownstein. “You don’t change a bad situation by talking to people who agree with you.”
Fracking: a Sampling of Recent Grants
Degenstein Foundation: $1-million to the Geisinger Health System, in Danville, Pa., to study the effects of natural-gas drilling on health.
Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation: $250,000 to the Clean Air Task Force to study ways to reduce airborne emissions associated with fracking.
New York Community Trust: $150,000 to the Gas Drilling Protection Project to advocate against oil and gas drilling in New York until regulations to protect the environment and human health are in place.
Park Foundation: $125,000 to Food & Water Watch to run its New Yorkers Against Fracking campaign.
Heinz Endowments: $45,000 to help form the Center for Sustainable Shale Development, a consortium of environmental, governmental, and industry leaders organized to develop and support fracking standards that minimize damage to the environment and public health.
Chorus Foundation: $15,000 to the Friends of the Rappahannock, an environmental group in Fredericksburg, Va., to advocate against fracking in the Rappahannock River watershed.
Foundations and the Fracking Debate
Grant makers have lined up in two distinct camps as hydraulic fracturing, a process for extracting gas and oil from shale, proliferates around the country.
Supporting tighter regulation of fracking:
- Bloomberg Philanthropies
- Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation
- Energy Foundation
- Robertson Foundation
- William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
- William Penn Foundation
Supporting anti-fracking advocacy:
- Chorus Foundation
- New York Community Trust
- Park Foundation
- Schmidt Family Foundation
The Heinz Endowments supports both tighter regulation and anti-fracking advocacy.
