 Good morning and welcome. This is a panel sponsored by the Center for Local, State, and Urban Policy. I'm Barry Raeb. I'm a professor here at the Ford School. And since July of this year, I've had the privilege to direct close up. I want to begin by thanking the Ford School Domestic Policy Corps for cosponsoring this. I also want to thank members of the close up staff, particularly Tom Ibako and Bonnie Roberts for all their work on this event. The issue of hydraulic fracturing and shale gas is such an intriguing issue to think about from so many perspectives. This is an area where, given the structure of federal statute, the federal role is currently constrained. States and local governments, very much at the center of the concern for close up, are major, major players in varying degrees, depending upon the nature of the resource they do or do not have beneath their land surface. It is clearly an issue that is beginning to emerge in the state of Michigan. It is an issue that has emerged much more dramatically in other jurisdictions. And so at the center, we wanted to take an early look at this issue and also work in a rather unique partnership with our good friend and colleague, Paul Caron, professor here at the Ford School, who teaches a wonderful undergraduate course called Thinking Analytically About the Problems of the Day. For which, over the last several weeks, Professor Caron and I have been leading a fracking module. There are many students from that class here today. This is part of their activity. And so we have a large contingent of undergraduates participating. We also have a very nice cohort of our MPP students, either playing the role of research assistants or GSIs for this, so we're really cutting across the Ford School community, as well as bringing in outside visitors for this activity. I don't know that five or six years ago, many of us would be expected to be gathering here, talking about words like hydraulic fracturing or shale gas, even though those are issues that have been around now for a while in Michigan and other jurisdictions. But it is, of course, an incredible time for a relook at that issue. In Michigan just last week, Governor Snyder devoted a good portion of his address on energy and environment to some of these various issues. And we were delighted to see that the governor noted the Graham Institute's role in pursuing an integrated assessment. Actually, a shout out to the Graham Institute in the middle of that talk. And we're delighted to have some of our colleagues here from Graham and certainly are eager to help that project in any way that we possibly can. So there is a certain ascendancy in Michigan. We also thought, in the case of Pennsylvania, which passed pioneering historic and controversial legislation last year, that a Supreme Court case in Pennsylvania might be decided by now. That is still before the courts. And we also saw, interestingly, last week the first candidate for the Democratic nominations for governor in Pennsylvania run on largely a fracking platform, challenging the incumbent, gearing up for 2014. So fracking emerges in all sorts of ways. And of course, we're only 23 days away from the event we are all waiting for, which is the release of the Matt Damon movie called Promise Land, which will once and for all resolve the issues of fracking, which focuses very much on the case of Pennsylvania. Mr. Damon could not be with us. But we are delighted while Matt Damon is promoting his movie. We're here, and we have a terrific panel. Let me briefly introduce these folks and then move on. Delighted to welcome Jacqueline Pless, who is an energy policy specialist at the National Conference of State Legislature. Jacqueline has worked in a number of areas in the energy policy arena and has done some terrific work looking across all of the states, including Michigan, but all of the states that have some involvement on this issue, whether it's severance taxation, regulatory policy, and has put together a series of ongoing reports and really providing a tremendous public service for her finger on the pulse of how different states are beginning to pursue this. And so we're delighted to welcome Jacqueline from Denver. She will be followed by Christopher Borek, professor at Muhlenberg College and director of the Muhlenberg Institute of Public Opinion. Chris will be talking about the first wave of findings, which we have been working at with close up, the first attempt to gauge public opinion in the state of Michigan with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Similar questions being asked at the same time. We're also joined by Erica Brown and Kristi Hartman, MPP students who have been RA's and will be co-authors of a report that close up in Muhlenberg will be releasing later in the week. Would also add that Chris has really entered the pantheon of leading national survey researchers. We all knew that was the case, but check out Nate Silver's ranking of America's top pollsters relate to elections and you'll see Chris very prominently displayed there. And so we welcome Chris back to our halls. And also delighted to welcome Eric Schwartzl. We learned that in looking at the Pennsylvania case, if you can imagine this, in 2009, 8.9% of all local media coverage on all sorts of issues in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania was on the issue of fracking, has reached that level of sensitivity and that level of saliency. We don't know, but I think Eric may have written half of that content. He is a remarkably prolific author. He has won a wide, wide range of awards, both for his own writing and his leadership of pipeline. If you want to look at what one local media outlet can do to provide a tremendous public surface on a range of coverage on this issue, take a look at the Pittsburgh Post Gazette and in particular pipeline, which is Eric's baby and his product, which he leads, which is a remarkable database and website on all aspects of the hydraulic fracturing and shale gas issue, both from Pennsylvania, but increasingly a comparative perspective. So we think we have really a terrific team of panelists. And then we will be following it up in Q&A while we would very much like to sort of open it up for discussion. Given the large attendance, we're actually going to turn to sort of an expert set of panelists. Scott Miller, who we're delighted to welcome from Ohio University, where he heads the Energy and Environment Program at the Vlenevich School of Public Affairs. We could not let an event like this go forward without letting Professor Karant ask a question. And then we're going to leave time for our two student co-authors, Christy Hartman and Erica Brown, to ask a question as well, assuming time permitting. With that, let's get launched and delighted to welcome you, Jacqueline. Thank you. I just need to pull my presentation. Sorry about that. That's OK. Good morning, and thank you for that introduction. Can you hear me all OK? No, OK. Is that better? In the back? OK. So you all are here today, because unless you've been living under Iraq for the past year or so, you have seen the big energy buzzword fracking in the headlines. And of course, there are just a few things that I'm hoping everyone will walk away today knowing. But basically, I have a lot of information to share in a short amount of time. So I'm going to try and talk as fast as possible. If I'm talking too fast, just throw tomatoes at me or something. So essentially, I want you all to really understand what fracking is, why it's an issue now, and then kind of receive a state legislative overview of how the 50 states are addressing this issue. So first, just a quick note about NCSL, which is the organization that I work for. It's a bipartisan organization. So we do not offer any advice to legislatures, but we simply provide information. We serve the legislatures and staff of the nation's 50 states, commonwealths, and territories. And we provide research, technical assistance, and opportunities for policymakers to exchange ideas on pressing state issues. I particularly work in our energy program, as Dr. Ray Petz says. So what is fracking? It's an oil and gas extraction method where hydraulic pressure is used to create fractures in shale rock. Pressurized liquids are pumped underground to help release the trapped gas. And essentially, this is allowed for commercially viable access to previously inaccessible unconventional oil and gas resources, such as shale gas, which is making up an increasingly large portion of the energy supply in the US. So why now? Why all the hype? These recent technological advances in natural gas drilling have opened up resources that were uneconomical or inaccessible just a decade ago. This has expanded supplies so much that some forecast current consumption levels could be sustained for another century. But there is increased public concern. The new technology is allowing access to gas in areas that are unfamiliar with the practice, particularly in more densely populated regions. And there's increased concern and attention to its potential effects on human health and the environment. At the same time, the natural gas industry offers tremendous economic benefits to state and local economies. So in a time of tight state budgets, this is a major factor that state legislators are considering. And states are grappling with how to balance taking advantage of the economic benefits while also protecting public health and the environment. So this is just a quick little visual of the shale plays that are in the lower 48, just to have an understanding of how expansive this resource really is here. In particular, the gas rush of the Marcel shale play, which stretches from Ohio to upstate New York, which lies beneath two-thirds of Pennsylvania holds incredibly expensive resources. Projections indicate that the Marcellus region alone could provide enough natural gases to satisfy US demand for at least a decade. So here we can see how shale gas in particular is playing an increasingly important role in the nation's energy portfolio. This shows US gas production projections through 2035. And you can see that shale gas production is expected to account for nearly 50% of total US production in 2035, compared to just 23% in 2010. So extracting natural resources can produce significant economic benefits for state and local economies. From manufacturing all the way to the wellhead, the industry makes contributions to the broader economy in terms of job creation, capital expenditures, GDP and tax revenues, and lower natural gas and electric power prices. In addition, it also brings increased domestic energy and security benefits as well. Although fracking offers all of these benefits, its rapid expansion near densely populated areas has increased attention to its potential effects on human health and the environment. For instance, one of the biggest concerns is that hydraulic fracturing could contaminate public drinking water resources. Fracking fluid can contain hazardous chemicals. And if it's mismanaged, it could be released by spills or leaks. Fracking also requires large amounts of water. So in some regions, water withdrawals could affect aquatic habitats or the availability of water. Also on the waterfront, fracking produces wastewater that must be treated properly before it's disposed. So that remains a challenge in some states. Air quality is a concern. Natural gas systems are one of the largest methane emitters in the US. And increased exploration and development also impacts the surrounding environment, wildlife, and human populations. Vegetation and soils are disturbed. Just gas wells can require roads clearing and leveling. And lastly, recent seismic activity in Ohio and Oklahoma are drawing attention to a possible link between earthquakes and deep wells used to dispose of waste for hydraulic fracturing. So that's just a quick little background. And I really want to get into more of the meat of my presentation here. And that's what the states are doing. And as you can see, this is a map of states that have introduced legislation in 2011 and 2012. And at least 158 bills in 26 states have been introduced. The lightest blue here are states that have introduced one to four bills. The medium tone blue are states that have introduced five to 10 bills. And then the darkest blue, you can see New York and Pennsylvania have introduced more than 20 bills. Pennsylvania has introduced 28 and New York 52. So this has obviously been an issue where states are really starting to focus on and they do have regulatory primacy on this issue. So this I just thought was a quick nice visual to compare where the shale regions are and where the state legislative activity is taking place. And you can really see how the darker blues are in the regions where Marcellus is starting to be developed. So more than 150 bills in just two years, that's a lot of action. And state legislatures are mostly working to alleviate public health and environmental concerns while also taking advantage of economic potential offered by shale gas development. So specific proposals include things like severance tax structure changes, well spacing requirements, sit back requirements, waste treatment and disposal regulations and requirements to publicly disclose the names and composition of fracking fluid chemicals. So at least nine states have proposed disclosure requirements. At least eight states have proposed casing integrity, well spacing, set back, water withdrawal type proposals. At least 11 states have looked at their severance taxes and at least eight states have proposed either suspensions or moratoria or studies to investigate the potential impacts of fracking. So the most frequently addressed trend this session is for increasing transparency and helping to monitor the fluids that are injected in the process. And one way that states are looking to do that is by requiring disclosure of the fluid additives. So this is a map, it's a little bit old, it's from March, but it's still a good visual to see the trend. The darkest blue here are states that have existing disclosure requirements but haven't necessarily introduced new legislation to change that structure. The medium tone blue are states that have introduced new disclosure requirements that did already have attacks intact. And then the lightest blue are states that have seen some form of legislation introducing, oh I'm sorry, I think I switched that out. Medium tone have no disclosure requirements as of yet. And then the lightest blue are states introducing legislation to change existing requirements. So recent research released by the University of Texas and like any other research, it needs to be taken with a grain of salt but it did not find a direct link between hydraulic fracturing and groundwater pollution. But above ground spills leaking drill casings and wastewater mishandling may be more common causes. So possible solutions that states are starting to look at include more stringent regulation of drill casings or other mechanical integrity measures. For instance, Illinois introduced a bill that would require integrity tests of casings or other mechanical testing prior to fracking. There's pending legislation in New York that would require certificates of competence to use a Derrick or other drilling equipment and Pennsylvania has also seen a number of similar bills. Spills can also occur during waste transportation. So a number of states have looked at this issue but in particular Pennsylvania's House Bill 1741 would require vehicles to display a placard on the outside of the vehicle indicating it is fracking wastewater. And states are also addressing waste treatment and disposal in a variety of ways partially due to unique geological factors. So for instance, Illinois is looking at legislation that would address disposal and reuse of well-simulation fluid that's recovered during flowback. New York has a bill pending that would prohibit treatment, discharge, disposal of storage of wastewater in the state. And New York has some pending legislation. This is just one quick example that would require treatment works to refuse industrial waste from fracking operations to contain high levels of radium. Well setbacks or location restrictions can help create buffers between drilling and public drinking water resources. So for instance, there's pending legislation in New York that would prohibit drilling within some set number of miles from the New York City water supply infrastructure. And then Pennsylvania also has some similar setback and well-location restriction legislation pending. So hydraulic fracturing may lead to competition for scarce water supply in some regions. So we see some states such as California that we're looking to at least require the amount and source of the water to be recorded just to kind of start this monitoring process to see what the effects really could be. Water quality monitoring may help improve knowledge of how fracking affects water supplies and quality. So for instance, in New York there's pending legislation that would require groundwater testing prior to and after drilling wells for oil and gas. And lastly, some states are, well not lastly, but some states are looking to kind of delay fracking operations until more is known about the effects. So for instance, here in Michigan, there was a bill introduced that would prohibit fracking under certain circumstances. And New York is putting everything on hold and really just conducting a lot of studies right now on the impacts of fracking. And Vermont enacted a bill, House Bill 464, to prohibit fracking in the state. Severance taxes, just a quick overview. There are excise taxes on resources that are extracted from the earth or severed from the earth. And most natural gas producing states have some form of severance tax. Severance taxes have historically been the source of a significant stream of revenue for energy rich states. And in 2010, more than $11 billion were generated in the US from severance taxes alone. So it's a huge revenue source for states that do have this energy. They can help ensure the costs associated with resource extraction are paid by the producers, alleviating some of the potential effects felt by local communities. So here we can see that at least 11 states considered legislation to impose new or amend existing oil and gas severance taxes. Just excuse me, one second. So over the last legislative session, 12 states have actually enacted legislation. And this is just kind of a listing of some of those bills. Clearly there's still a lot that's pending. But in Idaho, they impose restrictions on the ability of localities to regulate oil and gas. Indiana required adoption of rules addressing reporting and disclosure. Kansas allowed a commission to promulgate rules addressing disclosure. Louisiana addressed disclosure. Maryland passed a bill that established a presumptive impact area around drill sites. New Jersey imposed a one year moratorium, which was passed but then vetoed. And Ohio addressed horizontal well production training and employment. Pennsylvania, which Eric will actually talk a lot more about, passed a bill that addressed disclosure impact fees, local ordinances, it was kind of a large overhaul. But Eric will talk more about that. In South Dakota, a resolution passed that urged Congress to clearly delegate responsibility to regulate to the states. Just kind of opposing federal regulation of shale gas activity. Tennessee passed a resolution that encouraged meeting to propose regulations and protect water. Kind of a wishy-washy type of bill. Utah passed a resolution that urged Congress to also clearly delegate responsibility to regulate to the states. And then Vermont prohibited fracking in the state. So we're here mostly to also focus on Pennsylvania and Michigan, which Chris and Eric will do. But Pennsylvania did pass House Bill 1950, which is now Act 13. It's very controversial, there's a lot going on. It addresses local ordinances, impact fees, how those impact the revenue generated from those fees is distributed, well location restrictions, well reporting, a number of aspects of shale gas development. And then what's happening in Michigan? You heard Professor Rabe just talk about Governor Snyder's recent remarks and kind of prioritizing natural gas development in the state. And then also there are a number of a couple of bills that were introduced in the state as well. For instance, House Bill 5565, which would require authorization from the Department of Environmental Quality for Hydraulic Fraction Treatments. There's a bill that would prohibit fracking under certain circumstances. A bill that would provide for study of fracking. And then also a bill that would create a presumption of liability for contamination of groundwater caused by chemicals. So overall, natural gas development offers tremendous economic benefits and states are working to ensure that the resource is developed safely. It's a hot issue in state legislatures, especially in densely populated regions where the practice is unfamiliar. The hottest legislative trend has been increasing transparency through fracking fluid chemical disclosure requirements. States are also looking at other measures to help protect public drinking water resources such as mechanical integrity requirements to prevent spills and leaks. And then severance taxes generate revenue and states are addressing rate structures in various ways and looking at how to really optimize the amount of revenue that is generated for the state. So this is just my contact information. I am told that it will be posted at some point. NCSL has a number of resources that have 50 state tables of all this legislation. But hopefully I just provided an okay overview in the meantime. Thank you. Of course I lost it. I thought you were gonna do it. That was close. Thank you so much. Thanks. Thanks Jacqueline and thanks Barry and everybody else for inviting me to this event. And we're lucky today we're gonna be able to share some of our first for the public, a picture of what Michiganders think about fracking and how Pennsylvanians, a state that we've talked about already, a little bit in Eric will talk about in detail, have viewed this issue. And it's part of just a quick plug, part of a broader array of surveys, the National Survey of Energy and the Environment that close up here at the Ford School and the Institute of Public Opinion at Muhlenberg are doing. We're doing a number of studies on climate change, energy and the environment. And this is part of that overall group. So with that, I think Jacqueline did a wonderful job of making a case that fracking is emerging and has emerged as a policy issue throughout the United States. And in some places in a major way, like Pennsylvania and others in a developmental way. Pennsylvania and Michigan therefore represent two parts of a broader continuum or two points on a broader continuum of fracking activity. Pennsylvania may be considered the center, if you will, or the most active right now for a number of reasons, the number of wells, the engagement going on, the public discourse in some ways and some hyper public debate about the subject. While Michigan is somewhere in the middle, I would say, as you look at states. I think Jacqueline did a nice job. It's developing here. It's on the public radar. It's on government's agenda, but perhaps not fully developed in a way that Pennsylvania has seen it. As Eric will describe, when you look at Pennsylvania, it has over the last year been completely engaged, including major, major legislation passed earlier this year. Act 13, as Jacqueline talked about, that has established a very interesting array of policies in Pennsylvania that are unique, that are highly controversial and very debatable and will look a little bit at that. And as also is noted, and folks that are following this issue in Michigan, Governor Snyder's public address last week spotlighted the growing role and importance that the governor and others are placing on fracking as part of the broader energy and economic aspects of life in Michigan. So what we wanted to do with this study is to look a little bit at the public perspective. Clearly it's on the government radar. Clearly it's in the policy development stage at subnational levels of government, including Michigan and in Pennsylvania. But as fracking grows as an issue, what does the public think about it? How does the public view this issue? What do they know? What do they think? What do they want? In regard to this, this emerging topic. And in this particular research, we offer a little bit of insight into how the public in two different states, Pennsylvania and Michigan, view this issue. And I think it paints a picture that's fascinating in terms of where we'll see congruence of public opinion and also some differences notable, I think, related to the areas that we're looking at. So a little bit quickly about the survey methodology. If anybody wants to know more, I'm sure you can go to our friends at closeup and they could provide you the details. But it was two surveys done just this October, one in Michigan, one in Pennsylvania. Sample size is just over 400 with margins of error plus or minus five. Included both landlines and cell phones in both of those states. And again, I'll be happy to talk lots about the detailed methods, but they're telephone surveys. And the surveys do a couple of things. They first want to ask about general knowledge, public perception and general attitudes about fracking. Does the public know about fracking and what is their overall view about the concept? So has the public heard? How closely do they follow the debate? What's the public's general perception about the issue and the impact on their lives and their state? So we'll start off with this question. How much have you heard about fracking? Pretty simple, you know, as we ask. Either a lot, a little, or you've never heard about it at all. And as you could see, Pennsylvanians are slightly more likely, but not much more likely to have heard about that concept. In other words, even in a place like Michigan, you had 40% of the public say they heard a lot and 42% a little. Only 17%, less than one in five, Michigander said they haven't heard about this issue. I think giving a sense that it is, you know, a few years ago, if we said the word frack, you know, people would kind of stare at you a little funny and they'd probably think you might have said something inappropriate. Now it's something that is very much part of the vernacular. Pennsylvania, as we said before, almost half of the individuals in the state said they have heard a lot about the issue and that's not surprising. I'm a little surprised that it was so close between Michigan and Pennsylvania. Now just moving up as a layer from have you heard about it, how closely are you following the debates about fracking in your state? In other words, for the public, are they actively looking and listening to the debates going on? As you can see here, again, generally familiar or similar patterns between Michigan and Pennsylvania. Pennsylvanians are slightly more likely to say they are watching it somewhat closely, about a 11% gap, but not enormous differences between the two states. Again, a little bit surprising given that in Pennsylvania, the issue has been so dominant in terms of the public and in the press, compared to a rather emerging point of view in Michigan. Here's a question that I love to ask. The general reaction to the term, right? Fracking has become a term that's used. You hear it, it's thrown out there. We don't know how much people know about it, but we could ask them what their general reaction is. If you hear the word fracking, is it positive or negative? And almost basically identical numbers in Michigan and Pennsylvania, with most plurality, 45% saying it's a negative term and about 31%, 3 and 10 saying it's a positive term. I think that has a lot to do. Later on, it's a simple question, but a lot to do with the framing of the issue as we try to get specifics and details. Just from what point do we emerge? And the emerging of this issue, it's the term itself has a negative connotation. As much as it has a negative connotation, the word, when you ask individuals, are there more benefits or problems from natural gas drilling in the state? When you ask them kind of that macro question on the benefits and problems, more Michiganders and more Pennsylvanians, almost identical or close, I should say, in terms of the percentages, say there are more benefits. That fracking provides more benefits than problems for the state. And we'll see that in different levels. I won't get to all the details in this particular battery surveys or questions, but that's something that emerges consistently in our surveys in Pennsylvania. Then when you go from the idea as more problems to your personal stance, do you strongly support or somewhat support or strongly or somewhat oppose fracking in the most general right now? It's at the general concept. You'll see this is where we start to see a little more divergence. And this might be part of the experience with fracking. Again, Pennsylvanians have been well engaged in the issue of fracking for a number of years. Michigan residents are just starting to experiencing it. And you could see a majority of Michiganders right now support the concept of fracking. Again, this is a broad concept with 54%. Only 39% of Pennsylvanians share the same viewpoint. Well, you could see 49% of Pennsylvanians at this point compared to 35% of Michigan residents have opposition to the concept. And it's broadest sense, which again, I think is at one point where we just had vastly different experiences on the ground with this issue. And I think that might come across a little bit in the general opinions. Okay, from the general perspectives, let's no pun intended, drill down a little bit on the risks and rewards of fracking. How do we look at it in terms of the public's perceptions of what are the biggest risks involved and what are the biggest benefits that the public and the states themselves will gain from fracking in their jurisdictions? So this is a question, I'm sorry, it's a little bit of a busy table, but it's probably the best way to look at it. We ask an open-ended question. What is the most important risk from fracking? So what is the most important? This is not prompted, this is individuals simply stating what they think is the most important risk. And you could see, this is again, I think a little bit from the experience on the ground and what the public thinks. Water contamination in general was, other than don't know or not sure, the single biggest source or category for both Pennsylvanian and Michigan residents. Pennsylvanians, however, were almost twice as likely to say water contamination in general. And about the same in terms of groundwater. In Pennsylvania, and I think Eric can speak to this, the idea of groundwater contamination and the potential for groundwater contamination has been at the forefront of a lot of the controversy in the state. It's many news articles on it, lots of activism around that topic. It's fully engaged in the public debate, probably less so in Michigan at this point. And Pennsylvanians were more likely to identify that. You could see other categories that popped up in lesser degrees, health issues in general, the effect of pollution and chemicals. Some of the things we talked about, earthquakes, popped up a little bit on the chart. But you can see an array of issues. Michigan residents, I guess not surprisingly, were a little less, or more likely to say they don't know or are not sure compared to Pennsylvanians at this point, but not to a large degree. So the public has differing views on what the risks are. Now, in terms of potential benefits of fracking, what can this do? This was an unfortunate typo, it was a closed ended format. We gave these options to the respondents. So we gave the options that you see on the screen and asked them what they think. And you could see some convergence, I guess some pretty solid convergence between Michigan residents and Pennsylvania residents with the largest being fracking provides and promotes energy independence by increasing the supply of fossil fuels, extract it in the United States, about a quarter of Michigan and Pennsylvania respondents turn to that issue. Closely followed by fracking provides an economic benefit by stimulating investment and creating jobs. These economic aspects of it are often heralded and trumpeted as the key to fracking as an economic stimulus. And you could see those issues clearly played a fairly big role. This is just a follow up, I guess that ties nicely to the economic aspects of how the public is viewing this. We asked more directly how important is natural gas to your state's economy right now. And you can see that residents in Michigan and Pennsylvania in very large numbers say it's either very or somewhat important that when you hear a address like Governor Snyder's or if you've been following Pennsylvania politics, our governor, Governor Republican Tom Corbett has made this a centerpiece of his economic development strategies in the state and transcending just natural gas and fracking but also the processing and transportation and other aspects of it. So it is positioned as an economic driver and the public generally believes that. All right, the last part that I wanna talk about from the survey and again I'm skimming over lots of details, there's tons more and levels of detail and Christie and Erica will be playing with all those details. So much more to come on this. But what about regulation and taxation? These are in terms of the policy debates, some of the most controversial and bitter arguments that we have about fracking is how do we deal with its regulation? What level of government? Jacqueline talked a little bit about some of the legislation that's out there from states to say it has to be at the state level. Well, what's the public feel about that? Who should be regulating? Will regulation deter economic development? When those two things come together, right? If this is an economic stimulus, how do we find a way to have it both economically prosperous, economically prosperous development at the same time protection of natural resources? Where does the public stand on extraction taxes? Should we tax this? At what level should we tax it? And where should revenue from those taxes be used? If we are gonna tax it, where should it go? And those questions are on the mind. So we asked individuals about this. First, the best level. Where should we regulate drilling? Where should we regulate? This has been an amazingly controversial aspect of the Pennsylvania story about who should be the one to say how drilling should take place, where could it take place? Should it be at the federal, the state, or the local level? Well, in line with some of the legislation that Jacqueline pointed out, most individuals in both Pennsylvania and Michigan feel it should be either at the state or local level. As you can see, the state, a little bit more likely in both conditions. Pennsylvanians were a little more likely to say local, not gigantic, and that's one of the big fault lines, if you will, in Pennsylvania politics. Who should be doing this right now? So I think Pennsylvanians might be slightly more attuned to the role of the local governments. But clearly it's not, the idea of the federal role in this remains quite limited. And if you look at federal activity on this matter, it is quite limited to date. It simply isn't there. So the public in some ways is enlightening on that issue. So we asked a couple of questions, more specifically about the role that regulation might play in the economic development in the area. Our statement was this, tighter government regulations on the extraction of natural gas in Michigan or Pennsylvania, depending on the state, will lead drilling firms to leave the state and so should be avoided. And as you can see, a majority of both Michiganders and Pennsylvanians disagree with that statement. They don't buy the argument, if you will, that tighter regulations will lead to firms leaving the state. A non-significant portion of residents of both states do agree with the statement, but a majority don't. And in fact, in Pennsylvania, about two out of three Pennsylvanians don't. And this is interesting because the governor, Governor Corbett in our case, made that very claim as his major reason for behind Act 13, which is our legislation that Eric will talk about, that we couldn't over-regulate or we couldn't over-tax because firms would leave the states. Pennsylvanians simply don't buy that. They don't buy the idea that that's the case. And to a large degree, Michigan residents don't buy it right now either, a little bit closer. It'll be interesting to see how that plays out as we go back into the field and measure Michigan public opinion on this down the road. Sorry about my poor slide design. Should the state adopt or retain a severance tax? Should they actually keep their tax in the case, as Jacqueline said and noted, Michigan does have an extraction tax, a severance tax. Pennsylvania does not. It is one of the few states that does not have a formal tax. It has an impact fee that I think Eric could talk about a little bit later, but does not have a severance tax. Michigan residents overwhelmingly, three out of four say yes, we should retain in this case their severance tax, that the idea of taxing this resource is very popular, 77 to 13 margin. In Pennsylvania, where the debate has been much more lively, much more engaged, much more developed over the last years, you still have about a two to one margin of Pennsylvanians saying this. And this continues to be, that's why you see legislation reemerging and bubbling up in Harrisburg to somehow do this. With the governor in place right now, it's very unlikely we're gonna probably see that in the next couple of terms. The public support for a severance tax is there. Same thing, by the way. The argument about increasing taxes on natural gas will leave drillers to leave is a little bit more divided than the regulation division that we saw in the earlier slide, but still one that you can see a plurality of residents, in a case Michigan majority, feel that indeed taxes will not lead to individual, to drilling firms leaving the state. This is again, sorry for the busy slide and a lot up there, trying to cram too much into it a short time. These are preferences for use of revenue from a severance tax. And to just throw it out there, how you use the taxes is really important for how you sell the taxes to the public. And the idea of where would we use severance tax revenue? And as you can see here, reducing local property taxes is the single most common answer for both the states. And that's, if you follow Pennsylvania politics, and I imagine for folks that follow Michigan politics, property taxes an ongoing concern and always something that people are trying to reform. And so in this case, tying those two together is an interesting relationship in the public's mind. But other things like supporting research on alternative energy always pulls fairly well along with reducing income taxes in general. So I could talk more about that later in the question and answer period. Here's my last slide and I'll wrap up approval ratings. We've done this a lot in Pennsylvania for Governor Corbett over time and he has polled fairly poorly. As you could see, the plurality of people don't know, right? We know about fracking, we know about the issue a little, we have feelings about it, but we don't know a lot about the details other than the principles we've talked about. Half of Michiganders have no idea about, now this is before his policy statement, this is before his statement, so it'll be interesting to go back after. But Michigan residents are pretty divided right now on how he's handled it. The Pennsylvanians, on the other hand, tend to, those that have an opinion, have a negative view of the governor's handling. And we have a lot more data on this over time if folks are interested. So I'll wrap up. Citizens in Pennsylvania and Michigan maintain generally positive views about the contributions that fracking and natural gas development could mean for their states. They generally look at it in a positive way, but we've seen in the polling, we've seen in the surveys that we've done so far, that as much as they have a positive view about its potential, the handling, the implementation, the way that fracking is being done through a government regulatory mechanism and taxation scheme simply doesn't resonate in a positive way at this point. So as Michigan goes forward with this issue, it'll be really fun and interesting to track what goes on, but I'm out of time and I'll wrap up there. Thank you very much. Morning. Hi everyone and thank you to Barry and Paul and Bonnie and everyone here close up for gathering this panel on a very important topic. Barry and Chris's, their data has been very helpful to journalists working in the field, but I have to say my favorite question is always the one, how much do you know about this issue or how closely are you following it? Which means how closely are you reading the post-Cazette? And I'm heartened to see of an increase year over year because it was only a couple years ago that we would get calls to the newsroom people saying, who is the Marcellus shale and why do you keep writing about him? So it's good that we're all sort of on the same page now that we know it's not a person that we're talking about all the time on the front page. I come to you from Pittsburgh, which according to some people is the new energy capital of the world. To others it's the greatest environmental catastrophe of our time. But I'm going to talk a little bit today about two examples that we've seen in the tension between state and local regulations in the wake of this Act 13 legislation that everyone's referring to. Act 13 refers to the bundle of legislation that was pulled together by Republican governor earlier this year, it passed. And the biggest news that came out of it was the implementation of a per well impact fee, meaning that every driller paid a fee per well that they drilled in the state. Some call it a tax by any other name, but we're just now starting to see some of that revenue come in to the municipalities and the counties across the state. For those of you who didn't brief yourselves on Pennsylvania geography this morning, you'll see that Pittsburgh being here in the Southwest pocket of the state is the biggest city to be surrounded by natural gas drilling. The city itself has passed what is a rather symbolic ban on fracking in city limits. No one thinks that it's going to be setting up a rig downtown, but they still passed a ban on it. But in the counties surrounding Pittsburgh, especially down here, when you get into these border regions near Ohio and West Virginia, that is where some of the most concentrated drilling in the country is taking place. To give you an idea of what it's like on the ground to report this and to live in these communities every day, I'll take you back to last year when the secretary of energy, Stephen Chu, put together a task force who were charged with writing guidelines for President Obama and the energy department on what to do about natural gas drilling. And they went to several communities with active development to hear public comment. And this was the meeting. At one point, the task force had to leave the auditorium because the crowd was getting so rowdy that they feared for their safety. I should also say that many of the people in these photos do not live in the communities where the public hearing was held. It's not uncommon for anti-drilling activists from more urban centers to bust supporters into meetings like this. And also, the woman holding the sign in the bottom photo, she actually lived in New York and the industry paid for her in a group of sympathetic landowners to come to the meeting to tell the task force that they wanted drilling to occur in their state. So you can see the tensions between all levels of regulatory power from local to state and state to federal have been present for quite some time, but really came to a head with the passage of Act 13. And like I said, Act 13 has a lot of pieces of the legislation to it, but what I'm going to talk a little bit about today is how it handled local ordinances. That is local regulations that were drafted by different communities to handle gas drilling in their areas. And that means, I'll just show you a little bit of a comparative look that we did on Pipeline, which is the website that I edit. This is an interactive look at some of the communities in Western Pennsylvania and how their regulations differ from one another. So you'll see if you were to put up a well in South Bayette, you could not be located within 2,500 feet of a school or hospital, but if you went a couple yards away to Collier, you have to worry about being 300 feet from the Panhandle Trail, which is just a hiking trail. So you can obviously see that this can be a major issue for gas drillers who like to plan drilling two years in advance. And if they have to grapple with a specific set of rules and regulations for every tiny community in Pennsylvania, obviously it can impede their development. And it also becomes a pretty major issue when you realize that Pennsylvania has this many municipalities. We really have a fetish for municipalities. I don't know what it is, but we really, we can't get enough of them. And so you can see that the gas companies, their analogy was this is like requiring a different driver's license in every state. It's just not feasible. And often, back when the legislation was being drafted, what they advocated for as a compromise would be county-wide regulations where the county would draft the ordinance and they have similar operations in Texas. But the governor agreed with their more severe stance and the Act 13 legislation stripped the local communities of that regulatory power and instituted a statewide uniform set of standards. And immediately following the passage of the legislation, five municipalities in Southwestern Pennsylvania sued the state for that power back. And that's a little bit of the first case study that I wanna talk about today. They said that by taking away local regulatory power, they had stripped local officials of protecting the health, safety, and welfare of their residents. Obviously what they are charged to do when elected. Now, the case has woven its way through the courts and the most recent decision that we have was from the Commonwealth Court, which sits right below the state Supreme Court. And the Commonwealth Court actually ruled in favor of the community saying that the Commonwealth plan should not be allowed because it does not protect the interests of neighboring property owners from harm, alters the character of neighborhoods and makes irrational classifications. Now, what I should highlight here is whenever we're talking about these regulations can limit. It's not just the skyscraper rigs that you associate with active gas drilling, but it's also compressor stations that don't need to be near active sites and impoundment pits that often carry nasty stuff like frack water and discharge. So it's more than just the rigs that we're talking about. It's not just about making sure a rig isn't located near a hospital, but also how if a housing development doesn't wanna compressor station on some of their common ground, that can certainly become a major issue very fast as well. The state, as you might expect, immediately appealed the Commonwealth Court decision and it wove its way to the state Supreme Court. And that's where we remain. They held arguments for it last month and Chris keeps joking that decision is going to come down while I'm here in Michigan. So if I'm seeing fleeing the building, frantically calling people on my cell phone, it's because the decision has come down. They just posted on their website really conveniently for everyone. And don't tell you if it's there or not. But it's been complicated by matters because one of the seven state Supreme Court justices is currently suspended pending a criminal trial. So we have three Democrats and three Republicans hearing the case. If they were to go on party lines, the Commonwealth decision would stand and the municipalities would regain their right to regulate on a township by township basis. In the meantime, as Chris alluded to, the industry has implied that they would leave the state if they had to adhere to these onerous restrictions. I think a very common rebuttal to that is that the gas certainly isn't moving with them and that they would probably have to adjust as well. Just for comparison's sake, this was the scene at the Supreme Court arguments because they weren't allowed to take their signs inside and the judge's gavel really kept things to a dull roar during the proceedings. That's where we stand now, like I said, we're anticipating a decision before the end of the year so you can watch for that. In the event that the municipalities regain their right, we're gonna have to really start looking at how they then draft their regulations because as you can imagine, the township solicitors are not very experienced with working with like a Chevron or an Exxon that's moving in with major development operations and the industry of course is always willing to help put their model regulations forward. But what we're seeing really is a more replicative model where a lot of communities are using each others to draft it and piece it together. The other tension between state and local interests I want to highlight involves a large petrochemical facility that is slated to be built outside of Pittsburgh. Has anyone here heard of the Shell Cracker Plant? That's been going, okay, a couple smattering of hands. That's good. So the petrochemical phase of gas development is often associated as the third chapter of industry development. You have the rigs that come in and extract the gas. Then you have the compressor stations and processing pipelines that take the gas to market and then finally you have the petrochemical facilities that do stuff with it. And Royal Dutch Shell or as we know it Shell announced that they were interested in building a huge petrochemical facility, not unlike this one in West Virginia, Ohio or Pennsylvania to take advantage of all of the gas being extracted from the Marcellus Shell. Obviously it does not take long for state officials to start salivating at such a prospect because of the jobs and the wind that can come with it. So the three states jockeyed in trying to woo Shell to build in their state. And they did it with tax incentives and major tax breaks, packaging, different incentives together. Also every governor flew to Houston personally to try and lobby the company. Pennsylvania quote unquote won the Cracker Plant and it's going in a very small community called Manaka which is about 45 miles north of the city of Pittsburgh. Manaka is the kind of place where if you ask a township supervisor how many people live there they say 600 souls. They don't say 600 people, that's a direct quote. So you can see that something like this is a bit new for a township like Manaka. It's also one of the first Cracker Plants that will be built in the United States. So it's also been heralded as a geopolitical coup as we continue the argument that domestic resources will help wing us from international supplies. Now this is the site where it's going. It's in the Potter Township. It's going atop a zinc smelting plant that is moving to North Carolina for a different tax break. And obviously it's gonna cover hundreds of acres and take years to construct. And no job numbers, no hard job requirements were added to the incentive package. There was never, you have to create 1,000 permanent jobs to get your tax breaks. It has created an incredible local hiccup for the local school district and the local township because this zinc factory that you see here is the largest property taxpayer in the entire township. And by converting that land to tax exempt status they sacrifice their largest property tax payer. So Shell pays no property taxes for 22 years saving an estimated $1 billion. The local school district loses the zinc plant right now pays $275,000 in property taxes to the local school district. The township loses $40,000 per year or 7% of its annual budget. That $40,000 for comparison's sake is about how much it costs to run their volunteer fire department for a year. Now the state has said that the jobs and the economic growth and the spin-off companies that inevitably arise around petrochemical facilities will sort of counteract this or compensate for it. However, this loss in revenue is obviously coming at a time when it is needed the most because the school district is at capacity and will be expected to house the children of any workers or take it, not house, but educate the children of any workers who move to the area. And the township has said that they don't know how they're going to pay for water or sewer updates for the construction, let alone how they're going to pay for it without this additional $40,000 per year. So obviously, Shell sees the public relations disaster that is coming and agrees to pay a total of $7.6 million through a state program that allows it to pay 110% of what the zinc plant is currently paying in property taxes for 22 years. That amount remains static for the entirety of the 22 years, does not adjust for inflation. And we'll add up to $300,000 per year for 22 years for the local school district. And then obviously you can see, you can do the math $44,000 per year for 22 years for the local township. And that's where we stand. The township is so small that the upward that you might expect over this kind of thing has been relatively quiet, but it might be increasing as construction begins because this is the third piece of tax exempt property to go in the school district jurisdiction. The other two are a Walmart and Target and obviously they're a little bit more excited about this one. So it's obviously, I think one of the best examples we've had in our Shell development of a decision that has major state and even global implications, having incredibly unexpected and very local effects. Now I just also wanted to, in closing here, let you know how excited I am to see such a full house on a topic of fracking and let you know that you're very in right now being here. I don't know if you heard, but last week, Jeopardy had a question in which the answer was, what is the Marcellus Shell? It was the hardest question in the geology category. It was worth $2,000 and not a single person got it right, no one even guessed. And so I just want, if you leave here with anything today, I want you to know that you are all smarter than at least three Jeopardy contestants for knowing what the Marcellus Shell is. Thank you very much. Thanks. Thank you, Jacqueline and Chris and Eric for your presentations. We now move to the double bonus round of Jeopardy where we match our expert panel with an expert set of questionnaires and commentators, a mixture of faculty from this university and others and our students. We'd like to begin noting that Ohio is the best way to get from Pennsylvania to Michigan back and forth. And Scott Miller has really been taking the lead at Ohio University and thinking through the Utica Shell and other aspects of that. Scott. Thank you, Dr. Rabe and I appreciate you allowing me the first question. I want to compliment you on bringing together this great panel and what a great resource for the students and the community. My question revolves around, you all did a fantastic job of laying out the fact that the primacy for the regulatory environment for the fracking industry lies at the state level. And much of that gets devolved down to the local level because the major impact of all of this comes at the local level. And Eric, you did a great job of laying out what the local communities are faced with. My question really revolves around outside of what you were talking about, Eric and the rest of the panel as well. And I'll also field this to Dr. Rabe as well. Are there really good examples of local communities taking control of their local decision-making and trying to push back what is in essence a local communities with sometimes time employees pushing back against major multinational organizations who have hundreds of years of experience in this, a hundred years of experience in this? Are there good cases of folks pushing back? Yes, absolutely. And the best example that we've seen is in a town called South Fayette, which is a bedroom community, a relatively wealthy community outside of Pittsburgh. And you can see the recipe when I describe it. So it is a lot of rural farmland outside of the city that has recently had a lot of housing developments put in. So you have a community made up of single family homes averaging around like $350,000 in value with farmers next door. So you have farmers who have signed leases with families who have moved there obviously and not expected any kind of industrial development to crop up. It came down to the township supervisors who had to draft the ordinance allowing it. Whenever the community thought that the ordinance that they drafted was not restrictive enough, a majority of those supervisors were voted out of office and replaced mostly by first time office holders who had run exclusively on overturning their local regulations. So we have started to see shale drilling become a wedge issue not only in the governor's race, but also in school board races and in township supervisors because one thing that shale drilling does is sort of reverses the power structure in many respects and puts those offices, oftentimes part-time or volunteer, with the most power understanding where rigs will go. And also the city of Longmont in Colorado has passed a tracking ban. So I feel like we might start seeing more localities kind of take that approach until the state passes stricter regulations. The only comment I would add is I think that we're beginning to see in a few jurisdictions and it's interesting to think about this in Michigan that are beginning to invoke the term best practices. What does that mean? We've gone through a period for about 20 years where states and localities have taken expanded roles in all kinds of permitting issues that have some relationship to permitting. Many have thought about best practice issues, how to integrate air and water, and I think a real challenge and opportunity for this area is sort of taking that body of experience and extending it into this area. It'll be really intriguing as certainly as Jacqueline continues to do her work to see if that trend begins to emerge at the state level which for the most part probably has not. Or comprehensively to think of approach like that. That's right. Any comment from Ohio on that? I wish. We're very early in the early stage. We talked about this last night. We're approximately a year and a half into our fracking boom right now. We've got about 475 permits. That from last, as of last year we've had a couple of dozen so you can see the explosive growth part in the pun in permitting. And about 54 is on a well just this year. So we're really much earlier than Pennsylvania and looking for those kinds of case study best practices because local personalities are just really outmatched here. Delighted to call on a current resident of the state of Michigan, but if memory serves a former resident of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. I have to say as a former resident of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the how many thousands of townships? 500. I once had an issue with law enforcement as a customer in the township of Nether Providence. And I always kind of loved it as I was being hauled away from whatever I was doing. Nether Providence, is that cool or what? Anyhow, I got out, it was okay in the end. The question I want to ask is about disclosure. And there have been legislation kind of on both sides of it. And I know that many in the industry have basically argued that disclosing the details of the chemicals that they're pumping into the ground to do horizontal fracturing, hydraulic fracturing is a trade secret of sorts. So they don't want to do it because other firms might get the news on exactly how much of what is in the formula. I guess my sense is that that's an unpersuasive story against a public interest where you'd really like to know. So why would we not want to have a regulatory structure in which entities that are engaging in this kind of work that is affecting groundwater provide quite a detailed story about exactly what they're doing and exactly what they're pumping in, how they're dealing with it, and why it's okay. Paul, that's a great point, and you're absolutely right. It's one of the fewer, I didn't show the slides today and we've asked this in Pennsylvania. And in the Michigan context right now, and it's one of the places where there's just overwhelming agreement. It's 80% plus when we ask, is this in the public interest or should it be protected as a trade secret? And there's no debate among the public on that compared to a lot of debated and middle ground in the others. And it's simply, in Pennsylvania, and Eric could probably speak more of this, or Jacqueline, Pennsylvania's law Act 13 was fairly weird in many ways, but it was really weird on this provision. Because it gave, it created a dichotomy of where you had to give full disclosure based on the depth of the wells, right? So there's, if it's a certain depth or below you didn't have to disclose the chemicals, and if it was at a higher level, you would have to disclose the chemicals, so it's, Oh, I'm sorry, sorry, sorry. Oh, they're not working. Oh, that's all right. So the long and short of it is the public is, as you said, completely in agreement that this should be full disclosure. The state, on the other hand, created legislation that hasn't done that. And the whole process of disclosure remains pretty clouded, even though frack focus and others, but you can probably. Well, yeah, the industry response has always been that they do disclose. They put all of the chemicals up on a website called frack focus. Although Bloomberg has done some amazing reporting this year on just how many holes remain, even in those frack focus reports. However, I would just caution that while disclosure of the fracking chemicals does see unanimous support, and it's an important element, it can oftentimes overwhelm some of the other concerns that people have with the drilling process. And Jacqueline alluded to this where sometimes the impoundment pits and the drill cuttings can be just as nasty as the chemicals that are thousands of feet underground. And on a local level, I think things like truck traffic can be all the more severe and all the more everyday to residents than disclosure of the fracking chemicals. And I would just add, well, first off, I'm also from another Providence, Pennsylvania. So I know exactly where you're coming from, but we're also starting to see some states introduce legislation that would require disclosure just in certain circumstances or to certain people, for instance, doctors, or if there's a health issue, just different circumstances. So I would kind of expect that to be more commonly enacted at first before the full disclosure, just because industry is pushing back on the trade secret issues so strongly. Erica Brown. Thanks again for taking the time to speak to our class and all our visitors. We've talked a lot in our class about the role of public opinion and public policy, particularly when you have an issue like this that's very complex and requires a certain amount of scientific knowledge and technical knowledge. So the question that Christy and I had for you guys is, Eric, in your experience reporting on the issue in Pennsylvania, how have you seen the role of public opinion and the public's role in shaping policy? And then Jacqueline, in your experience researching legislation and working with state legislators, how have you seen the role of public opinion in shaping their concerns? And then we also have a follow up for Chris afterwards. Take it away. I think at kind of the more 50 state perspective, we've seen a little bit less of that coming into play than maybe just directly in Pennsylvania, and it tends to be, you feel a lot stronger in the states that are really starting to see this influx of drilling. So I think the public opinion's possibly coming into play a lot more in states like Pennsylvania than states like maybe Texas, where they've been drilling for a long time and it's not necessarily a new activity. I think Eric might have more to say on that, though. One of the cruel alchemies that has emerged in Pennsylvania is that the more drilling there is in a community, there tends to be the less advocacy or activism in that community. The activism against drilling or in favor of more stringent regulations is very concentrated in the urban areas like Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, where there are no rigs. But if you go to Green County, which is in the southwest corner of Pennsylvania, has the second highest concentration of wells in that region and almost no activist presence or advocacy presence. So that's the dynamic that we're seeing. And so a lot more complicated political factors come in very quickly where you'll go to these meetings and like the photos I showed, it quickly becomes an argument about, oh, don't be thrusting your city values on our country living and no one understands the other. And then it quickly becomes a much more divisive and bigger divide. I think, though, at this point, we've gotten to a point where, at least from the press perspective, it often feels like no matter what we write, the article becomes a litmus test for what that person already believed. The lines are pretty clearly drawn at this point among engaged citizens, I think. Now that being said, we did have a candidate for governor announce his candidacy this week. And he's a former Department of Environmental Protection Secretary and he's emerged since his tenure there as a bit of a shale superstar. He keeps a blog about it and everything. But he doesn't seem to be running a race that is only a referendum on shale drilling so far. It seems more, as I read it, it seems to put education and education funding as a higher priority. And I think that's probably because he probably couldn't run a state for statewide office on shale drilling alone. It's just not permeating a huge part of the state just by nature of where the drilling actually is. So sorry, we couldn't do only one question. Our follow up to Chris was, since you've spent a lot of time with the public opinion data, we were wondering if you could design policy for Pennsylvania that really reflects public opinion, what would that be and specifically how would that differ from what's actually been enacted? That's a great question. And I think we've pulled this now for a number of years. And I think the two biggest differences probably are two things we've just talked about already. The transparency rules, I think if you look at public attitudes on this are overwhelming. And I don't think Act 13 jived very well with public perception on that. And I think we haven't asked us a battery really to dig down on that, but there's just very little buy-in to the idea that the public safety should be put in jeopardy for a trade secret. It just doesn't hold water. The other is simply on the tax issue. Pennsylvanians, and this is, I think Eric had a really good point about John Hanger, who is the former DEP director who's running for governor. He's in shale, he is a superstar. He's on the forefront of those issues. But he's touching in when he pushes education policy and education funding. Over the last few years, Pennsylvania, like a lot of states, has cut back on funding to higher education and secondary education in the state. When you juxtapose that against the potential revenue that could be coming from Marcellus shale extraction in the state, it's not good in the optics. It doesn't look good for governor Corbett. And that's why you see his numbers are low. His numbers are low on a lot of things right now. And that's why you're getting candidates coming forth to Russian. So I think Eric's absolutely right. Even though it's been a very big issue in the state, it's not an issue that could probably win or lose you an election. But when you match it, when you say, look, you're leaving money on the table while you're cutting schools. You're leaving money on the table while you're cutting state park budgets. And I think that's a good narrative to weave together. So if you're looking at public opinion in the state, I think in the next race, the idea that are we benefiting as much? Pennsylvania's think it's good for the state. I think they don't think it's been handled in a way that provides the maximum amount of benefit for the Commonwealth as a whole. I didn't show the slides that Barry and I have done in some other surveys to ask, is this a private resource or a public resource? And overwhelmingly, Pennsylvania's thinks it's a public resource. So I think the public benefits have to be bigger as a really, really good question. We could obviously extend this conversation for some time, but we do need to close. I just wanna make a couple of observations. One is that all of these presentations will be posted on the closeup website shortly. And we will be releasing a report in about one month's time, a closeup Yellenberg report, that will go into these survey findings in much more detail and also include a good deal of background on the emerging fracking issues in both Pennsylvania and Michigan. So be mindful of that. I also can't help but note, especially given this last point in exchange on taxation, as Chris noted, we are now rolling out an umbrella of surveys under the label of the national surveys of energy and environment. Again, a partnership between the Ford School and the Yellenberg Institute. The first of the survey reports coming out on this are focusing on the issue of public opinion on climate change, especially policy options as relate to climate change. That will be released on Wednesday. And would only there note that a substantial focus there relates to the issue of taxation and energy taxation, gasoline taxes, carbon taxation, both public support and approval, but also the issue of revenue use and whether or not revenue use has any impact on how the public feels about those kinds of issues. So do indeed stay tuned for that. Final points, one is just really wanna thank all members of the panel for coming and convening and being part of this. This is an issue that's been emerging for a number of years. And it's one where the social and policy sciences have been relatively slow to come to the table and engage. The natural and physical sciences, the engineering sciences have been much more actively involved for a longer period of time. And so one of the things that we're very eager to do through the center is to begin to close that gap and really draw on the remarkable resources that we have at this university and our other partners and begin to think about issues of constructive engagement on this issue. And with that, if you wouldn't mind joining me in closing by thanking our panelists and questioners for the interview.