(C) Ohio Capital Journal
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Ohio Oil and Gas Land Management Commission must remove deceptive letters from its website • Ohio Capital Journal [1]
['Guest Author', 'Marilou Johanek', 'Michael Lamonica', 'Dr. Bryan Hambley', 'Carol Kauffman', 'More From Author', 'August', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow', 'Class', 'Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus']
Date: 2024-08-21
By Cathy Cowan Becker, Jess Grim, Mary Huck, Jenny Morgan, Anne Sparks, and Melinda Zemper
Last September, reporter Jake Zuckerman of Cleveland.com broke the story that dozens of Ohioans whose names were on public comments in support of fracking Ohio state parks and public lands had never submitted those comments.
Within days, the count of people who said they had not submitted pro-fracking letters that bore their names reached almost 150, and Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost vowed to investigate.
Save Ohio Parks volunteers were instrumental in identifying over 100 of the people whose names appeared on public comments they had not submitted to the Oil and Gas Land Management Commission — the body tasked with deciding whether to approve or deny fracking of Ohio state parks, wildlife areas, and other public lands.
Suspicious comments
Save Ohio Parks first noticed anomalies with 1,100 pro-fracking comments last summer, shortly after they were posted on the commission’s website. The comments were written in industry parlance, not how a normal person speaks. They all had the same subject line, “Secure Ohio’s Energy Future,” and were identical except for the names, street addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses at the bottom.
But the kicker was, the 1,100 comments were submitted in five batches, with each batch of hundreds of letters bearing a time stamp in the exact same minute. No matter what issue is open for public comment, it is highly unlikely that hundreds of people would submit identical comments in the same minute.
We learned these letters were submitted by Consumer Energy Alliance (CEA), an oil and gas public relations firm based in Houston. CEA had gathered the personal information of Ohioans for an unrelated purpose, then attached this information to public comments supposedly in favor of fracking our state parks, which CEA then submitted to the state commission.
CEA has a track record of using citizens’ personal information without their consent on pro-fossil fuel public comments in several states, including previously in Ohio in 2016.
Save Ohio Parks brought our findings to the commission chair and asked her to remove these deceptive letters from the commission website. She declined. Instead she told us to contact the attorney general.
800 phone calls
Before doing so, we delved further into the case. A dozen Save Ohio Parks volunteers called over 800 people whose names were on the letters. Of those, we reached 107.
Of the people we reached, 101 told us they did not submit the comment. Many did not know what fracking is, some did not speak English, some did not have a computer, and some were children. (Two said they did submit the comment, and four said they could not remember.)
Save Ohio Parks provided our documentation to the attorney general’s office in September 2023 — but never heard anything back from either Yost or the commission.
Last week, we learned from reporter Darrel Rowland of WSYX-TV that Yost’s investigation had been closed months ago. The attorney general’s findings confirm what we told the commission last year: that Consumer Energy Alliance had gathered personal information from 1,100 Ohioans for one purpose, then without their knowledge had submitted that personal information on public comments supposedly in favor of fracking our state parks and public lands.
Yost is now proposing a new administrative rule that would label what Consumer Energy Alliance did as a “deceptive act.” However, neither the investigation nor proposed rule contain any penalties for CEA or anyone else who engages in such deception. Yost’s only action addressing the misuse of Ohioans’ personal information by CEA was to send a sternly worded letter.
Commission must act
Save Ohio Parks again calls on the commission to remove these 1,100 comments. It is wrong to leave the personal information of Ohioans that they did not submit posted publicly on a state website. Not only does it give the impression there is more support for fracking our state parks than there actually is, but it puts these Ohioans at even greater risk of identity theft.
We further call on the commission to stop rubber-stamping fracking of our Ohio state parks and wildlife areas, but instead listen to the thousands of Ohioans who actually have submitted public comments against oil and gas extraction from public lands. We the people pay for these lands with our tax dollars, and we deserve a say in what happens to them.
Commissioners are required by statute ORC 155.33(B)(1)(h) to consider “any comments or objections … submitted to the commission by residents of this state” in deciding whether to approve or deny a parcel proposed for fracking — yet this commission has not once referred to the extensive public comments opposed to fracking Ohio public lands, even as they continue to approve nominations and bids to frack our parks and wildlife areas.
This must stop. We the people of Ohio own and use our public lands — just 3% of all land in Ohio. We do not want to see this land irrevocably altered by toxic, industrial fracking.
Cathy Cowan Becker, Jess Grim, Mary Huck, Jenny Morgan, Anne Sparks, and Melinda Zemper are members of the steering committee for Save Ohio Parks, an all volunteer citizens group concerned about fracking of our state parks, wildlife areas, and public lands. Learn more at saveohioparks.org.
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