American Oil and Gas Reporter - April 2019 - 125

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FROM PAGE 114
XTO Energy, an ExxonMobil subsidiary,
and Allen Fore, vice president of public
affairs at Kinder Morgan, offered insights
into how companies could best improve
their standings in the communities where
they operate.
Fore noted challenges confronting the
oil and gas industry had changed a lot in
only five years. Those opposed to energy
development had adopted a much more
aggressive and activist tone, and were
receiving more funds. He added those
groups also were taking advantage of numerous new communications tools in extremely organized ways.
The industry sometimes has been slow
to deal with that new reality, he suggested,
although there were signs it was getting
better. Too often oil and gas companies
relied on earlier practices, employing familiar talking points or fact sheets. Fore
argued those were not enough to challenge
the very emotional and polarized arguments used by the "keep it in the ground"

movement.
"The other part is a better understanding that not all folks who had questions about what we do are extremists,"
he said. "There is a lot of good information out there by reasonable folks
who we can learn from. To dismiss
those who are coming up with new
questions, tougher questions, more challenges for us, is a bad thing; it means
we have to do a better job of telling our
story, which is a very compelling and
good story."
Matusic noted that social media had
changed the dynamic between companies
and the public, and producers willing to
invest time in new communications tools
could reap the benefits. "We can use
social media as well," she offered. "It
also is important to not necessarily engage
with everybody who is going to hate our
industry, because we will be there all
day. The time to do so is when they are
spreading fallacies."

Industry must continue having those
conversations with opponents, Matusic
urged, recommending companies get
pre-emptive in their discussions and not
wait for people to get upset about planned
developments.
Stevens added that often public affairs
personnel serve as figurative firefighters,
dealing with emergencies likely to harm
a company's positive image. She recalled
her experiences in taking one telephone
call.
"I could be the 19th person that a
person called, and out of the 18 people
he talked to before me, 17 told them no
or said they couldn't help him," she
said. "So by the time this guy got to me,
he was livid. But, sometimes, it is not
about fixing the problem; sometimes
these people just want you to listen.
They know how unfixable the problem
is in some circumstances, but they just
want to be heard."
❒

ADVOCATES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
FROM PAGE 118
didn't come until weeks later. "It was
too late at that point," Whitehead rued.
"This was in people's heads already."
Setting The Record Straight
Colorado voters ultimately rejected
Prop 112 because the industry took it
very seriously and mobilized its workforce,
Whitehead said. "There were numerous
rallies, and oil and gas supporters turned
out at the polls in droves," he reported,
citing Weld County, where the initiative
failed 75-25 percent.
Other keys, he said, included relentlessly disseminating the facts and getting
reputable third-party sources to debunk
myths. A turning point, he indicated,
was a "fact check" television report that

substantiated industry claims about Prop
112. That report included interviews
with former U.S. Interior Secretary Ken
Salazar, former Colorado Governors Bill
Owens and Bill Ritter, the COGCC testifying a 2,500-foot setback would halt
drilling on 85 percent of nonfederal land
in the state, the CDPHE refuting activists'
health claims, and the Colorado Department of Local Affairs and the State Land
Board upholding projections of lost
school funding.
"That report didn't happen by accident,"
Whitehead assured. "They hammered that
reporter for months before she finally
did the story that set the record straight."
Prop 112 carried in population centers
removed from development such as

Denver County and Aspen, Whitehead
advised. "I don't need to tell you the
obvious correlation in our state is Chicago, which has no oil and gas development anywhere near it, but all the political power."
He contended that laying low and
hoping to be left alone was no longer a
viable strategy. "The keep-it-in-theground movement doesn't think like
that," he warned. "Those activists are
looking for tangible victories wherever
they can find them. They look for vulnerable areas that are quickly achievable,
so I think we need to step up our education efforts about the unique and essential
aspects of our Illinois industry to the
state's economy."
❒

BLM Told To Consider Climate Change
WASHINGTON-Finding that the U.S.
Bureau of Land Management must consider climate impacts more broadly, a
federal judge in Washington has at least
temporarily blocked drilling on more than
300,000 acres in Wyoming. However,
opinions vary on the order's long-term
consequences.
In WildEarth Guardians, et al v. Zinke,
et al, U.S. District Court Judge Rudolph
Contreras for the District of Columbia
ruled on March 19 that when BLM auctions

public lands for oil and gas leasing, the
agency must consider greenhouse gas
emissions from past, present and foreseeable future oil and gas leases nationwide.
"Given the national, cumulative nature
of climate change, considering each individual drilling project in a vacuum deprives the agency and the public of the
context necessary to evaluate oil and gas
drilling on federal land before irretrievably
committing to that drilling," Judge Contreras wrote in his 60-page decision.

The lawsuit was filed by itself, Physicians for Social Responsibility and the
Western Environmental Law Center in
2016, WildEarth Guardians explains in a
news release following Judge Contreras'
ruling. That lawsuit targeted more than
460,000 acres of lands leased for oil and
gas development in 2015 and 2015 in
Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. However,
in November 2016, Contreras trifurcated
the case and decided to address 303,000
acres of leases in Wyoming first, the
APRIL 2019 125

American Oil and Gas Reporter - April 2019

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