Activists Determined to End Fracking Try to Convince Ohioans that Methane Rules Create Jobs

If at first you don’t succeed try…recycling? That’s the playbook behind a new report stating that “50,000 jobs would be created” by methane regulations, which was released this week through the “Bluegreen Alliance.”

The “Bluegreen Alliance” includes some unions, regulation supporters like the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and several anti-fracking groups like the Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Union of Concerned Scientists. The report itself is essentially a reprint of a report by Earthjustice, the Sierra Club, and the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) published just a few months ago that also claimed new methane regulations would “create good jobs” – and that report was based off of a 2014 EDF-commissioned report that presented the same argument. However, the facts show otherwise.

Ohio “jobs created” not based on facts

The Bluegreen Alliance report draws heavily on a 2014 EDF report, noting:

“A 2014 report from Datu Research, The Emerging U.S. Methane Mitigation Industry, further explains existing technologies with a focus on identifying and exhibiting companies that produce the products and services. They found that: At least 76 firm manufacture methane mitigation equipment in the United States and/or offer services…”

That previous Datu Research report that EDF launched in 2014 identified 13 Ohio companies that would be so-called job creators from additional methane regulations. That 2014 report included Ohio companies such as Ariel Corporation, and Dearing Compressor as case studies of companies that would benefit from federal regulations of methane.

However the report in 2014 – as well as the two reports rehashing that data – still fails to address the fact that these companies are ...