By Taylor Kuykendall, Reporter - email
At a meeting of the West Virginia Coal Association Friday morning, Kentucky and Ohio industry officials called for answers as to why a natural gas company has been funneling money to groups who are fighting the coal industry on environmental and health grounds.
Bill Bissett, president of the Kentucky Coal Association, spent the last few minutes of his presentation to West Virginia coal miners and industry executives discussing his disgust with Chesapeake Energy for their funding of anti-coal campaigns.
Bissett pointed out that the American Lung Association has come out against the coal and oil industries, but has left the natural gas industry alone. The American Lung Association has received some funding for its Clean Air Initiative from Chesapeake. Scott Rotruck, Chesapeake's vice president of corporate development and state government relations, serves on the American Lung Association board.
After the presentation, Bissett also pointed to $26 million the Sierra Club received from the natural gas industry. Bissett said Chesapeake's action was incredibly inappropriate.
"People need to know where the money comes from," Bissett said during his presentation at the symposium. "But to fund, sort of under the cover of night, a public health organization that supposedly is focused with communicating to the public, when in fact it may have been more drive by market share. I think that's rather insidious, and I hold Chesapeake responsible for this."