At an industry conference in Philadelphia last month, oil and gas executives gathered to hear about a little-known public relations effort with a very precise target: newly hired state and federal environmental inspectors.
At a seminar titled “Staying Ahead of Federal and State Regulations: A Partnership with Academia and Government,” officials from Pennsylvania State University and the University of Texas described how gifts from companies like ExxonMobil allowed their universities, along with the Colorado School of Mines, to offer state regulators free classes on oil industry best practices, travel and accommodations included.
“We’re targeting inspectors – oil and gas inspectors – who have three years or less of experience, although we do have lots of inspectors with different experiences on the course,” Dr. Hilary Olson, director of Education, Training and Outreach at the College of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering at the University of Texas told attendees at Shale Insight 2015.
The program showcases the industry’s technical prowess as it conveys detailed information about the science involved in oil and gas drilling and fracking. “We don’t teach them about regulations specific to their state or talk to them about policy; what we’re interested in teaching them is the engineering, the science, the technology and how to communicate about that technology,” Dr. Olson explained.
The five-day TopCorp course includes both time in the classroom and visits to working oil and gas sites, taught by professors from many disciplines. Sample lesson footage reveals an online course featuring slick CGI graphics as professors lecture on topic ranging from basic principles of geology to complex technological advances that the industry has made in recent years.
All three universities involved have made national headlines in the past for their “frackademia” scandals.
In 2009, a Pennsylvania State University study, which claimed Pennsylvania alone could create 175,000 jobs by promoting fracking in the state, made headlines because the study’s lead author, Timothy Considine, had concealed the fact that the research was funded by the shale industry.
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