Shale drillers hire former Pa. governor
HARRISBURG, Pa. -- An industry group led by companies drilling for natural gas from the Marcellus Shale formation said Friday that former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge has been hired as its strategic adviser.
A Marcellus Shale Coalition spokesman said Ridge's Washington, D.C.-based communications and policy groups will be paid $75,000 a month for help in such areas as public outreach, education and coalition building.
Messages left for Ridge Global were not immediately returned, but a statement by the coalition quoted Ridge as saying he would work "to ensure worker safety and environmental protection, and to encourage the fullest economic benefit for our state, our communities and the entire workforce" involved in drilling and transporting the natural gas.
The vast gas deposits under Pennsylvania, New York, West Virginia and Ohio may contain enough to supply the entire East Coast for 50 years, but the drilling process being used to extract it, hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," has drawn concerns about water pollution from the chemicals it uses.
Ridge is a former congressman from Erie and two-term Republican governor. He served as the nation's first secretary of the Department of Homeland Security under President George W. Bush.
HARRISBURG, Pa. -- An industry group led by companies drilling for natural gas from the Marcellus Shale formation said Friday that former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge has been hired as its strategic adviser.
A Marcellus Shale Coalition spokesman said Ridge's Washington, D.C.-based communications and policy groups will be paid $75,000 a month for help in such areas as public outreach, education and coalition building.
Messages left for Ridge Global were not immediately returned, but a statement by the coalition quoted Ridge as saying he would work "to ensure worker safety and environmental protection, and to encourage the fullest economic benefit for our state, our communities and the entire workforce" involved in drilling and transporting the natural gas.
The vast gas deposits under Pennsylvania, New York, West Virginia and Ohio may contain enough to supply the entire East Coast for 50 years, but the drilling process being used to extract it, hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," has drawn concerns about water pollution from the chemicals it uses.
Ridge is a former congressman from Erie and two-term Republican governor. He served as the nation's first secretary of the Department of Homeland Security under President George W. Bush.
