Watching Government: Conflicts of interest

Sept. 17, 2012
An American Petroleum Institute official asked the US Environmental Protection Agency's Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) to quit excluding oil and gas industry experts from studies because of alleged possible conflicts of interest.

An American Petroleum Institute official asked the US Environmental Protection Agency's Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) to quit excluding oil and gas industry experts from studies because of alleged possible conflicts of interest.

"We have repeatedly offered the expertise of our members to both the agency and the SAB peer review process and, unfortunately, have been disappointed by the lack of follow-through and acceptance," API Executive Vice-Pres. Marty Durbin said on Sept. 10.

"From our perspective, critical opportunities to leverage the tremendous knowledge and experience base offered by the industry have been repeatedly missed," he continued in a letter to EPA SAB Staff Office Director Vanessa Wu.

Durbin said API was disappointed that no industry experts were selected when SAB announced the makeup of a hydraulic fracturing review panel on Jan. 10, 2011.

"While that panel may have been composed of recognized technical experts in their respective fields, [its] members, with just a few exceptions, had virtually no relevant knowledge or understanding of how oil and gas operations in general or [fracing] in particular related to their respective areas of expertise," he noted.

An Aug. 21 Federal Register notice soliciting nominations for a new panel on progress studying potential impacts from fracing on drinking water resources gives SAB a chance to include representatives with direct oil and gas exploration and production experience in a critically important discussion, Durbin continued.

"The SAB Staff Office financial conflict criteria should not automatically eliminate any individual [who] works for a corporation or has been contracted by a corporation from consideration," he said.

Experience matters

Durbin noted that industry representatives have a long record of valuable, unbiased participation in many other SAB committees and panels. Individuals with extensive field experience and first-hand knowledge of drilling and completion techniques are critical to examining very specialized processes and the research addressing those processes, he maintained.

More broadly, Durbin suggested that EPA recognize that most individuals nominating themselves for potential SAB panel membership have some financial stake: "Academics seek grants, [nongovernment organizations] seek donations, regulators seek programmatic funding, consultants seek contracts from government as well as industry," he said, adding, "In many ways, a salaried corporate employee has the least to gain or lose financially from the outcomes and recommendations of an EPA study."

Durbin's letter, which listed specific important areas of expertise, also recommended that representatives from the Interstate Oil & Gas Compact Commission and other significant stakeholders also be included.

EPA wants this panel to complete its work by December, which Durbin considers a monumental task. But he also clearly wants its report to be objective, unbiased, and fully representative.