Interactive on Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission members

[Divernan]

30 Members - all white, one female. Guess this means us women and all non-whites should just not worry our little heads about health, environmental & economic impacts of fracking & giving away our state's resources. By the way, not one environmental scientist or medical professional is named to the group. I don't count Penn State Professor Engelder as an ENVIRONMENTAL scientist - his entire professional career has been spent either working for or conducting research on behalf of Big Oil.

http://shale.sites.post-gazette.com/index.php/multimedia/interactives/governors-shale-advisers

By Katie Park

The gallery displays the commission's chair, Lt. Gov. Jim Cawley, and the 29 other members. It allows users to sort the members by name, by sector — government, industry and environmental — and by the amount of money each member contributed to Mr. Corbett's campaign since 2008.

The three sectors are determined by each member's most recent and relevant experience relating to Marcellus Shale. Several members have experience in more than one sector, such as C. Alan Walker, a state government official with a lengthy career in the coal industry.

Information on campaign contributions was made available through the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's Campaign Finance Reporting database. The Post-Gazette's statehouse reporter, Tracie Mauriello, researched campaign contributions from 2008 to March 8, 2011.

The interactive gallery displays the total amount contributed — which includes campaign donations from family members and from the commission members' companies — as well as a breakdown of each member's contributions.

A look at the commission's makeup shows:

[Curmudgeoness]

1. Very interesting interactive. You are right, this is weighted heavily

to white males. I wish they would have also listed party affiliation---not that I have to ask on most of them.

Engelder isn't exactly unbiased---worked for Texaco, principal at Appalachian Fracture Systems....wonder what that is.

And the environmental sector is a little slim, even if by some alignment of the sun and moon you include Engelder in that sector. They aren't even trying to be fair. I hope that the environmental sector is outspoken during the meetings and outside of the meetings. I want to hear what is going on from people I would trust.