Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Industry group urges Oscar judges to steer clear of 'Gasland'

Mike Soraghan, E&E reporter

"The oil and gas industry doesn't want a golden Oscar statuette to grace the mantle of "Gasland" filmmaker Josh Fox.

An industry group sent a letter today to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, saying that a litany of errors in the anti-drilling film should render it ineligible for best documentary feature.

"The filmmaker alternates between misstating and outright ignoring basic and verifiable facts related to the impact of these activities on the health and welfare of humans, wildlife and the environment," said Lee Fuller, executive director of Energy In Depth (EID), in a letter today to the academy.

But Fox says his documentary is "backed up by facts 100 percent," and it is the industry that perpetuates falsehoods.

"Gasland exposes what they've been doing and they don't like it," Fox said in an interview today. "EID is a smear organization, a PR firm that has nothing to do with reality."

EID is an industry group formed to fight federal regulation of hydraulic fracturing, a process portrayed in the film as a central danger of oil and gas drilling. The group is closely affiliated with the Independent Petroleum Association of America, where Fuller is vice president of government affairs." More>>>>



No comments:

Post a Comment