Institute head quits after fracking report slammed

University of Texas research that determined hydraulic fracturing for natural gas is safe was tainted by a conflict of interest involving the study’s lead investigator, an independent panel has concluded.

After seeing the panel’s findings, the head of the Energy Institute, Raymond Orbach, said he would “assume full responsibility” and resigned his position though he remains on the faculty.

The lead investigator, professor Charles Groat, has left the university and the study he oversaw has been withdrawn, according to a statement the school released.

The “study falls short of the generally accepted rigour required for the publication of scientific work,” the panel said in its report. “Primary among the shortcomings was the failure of the principal investigator to disclose a conflict of interest.”

The university appointed the panel after it was reported Groat sat on the board of a gas-drilling company, which wasn’t disclosed when the study was released in February.

The findings mark the third blow to industry-friendly fracking research in as many months. The State University of New York at Buffalo shuttered a Shale Resources and Society Institute after the college president said there was a “cloud of uncertainty” over its work. The Marcellus Shale Coalition, an industry group, cancelled a study of fracking after faculty members at Pennsylvania State University balked at participating.

Groat had been on the board of Plains Exploration & Production Co. since 2007, a relationship he didn’t disclose in the report, or when he presented the Texas findings at the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

As a board member, Groat received 10,000 shares of restricted stock a year, according to company reports. He also received an annual fee, which was $58,500 in 2011.

As of March 29 Groat held 40,138 shares in the company, which would be worth more than $1.7 million at Thursday’s closing share price.

Groat, who selected the researchers and edited its summary, said in an email that the panel backed his contention that he didn’t inject bias into the individual researchers’ papers.

“I maintained that my role was not one that would allow this to happen,” he wrote.

The panel also said that Groat, who said he took another job before the controversy erupted over the fracking study, was “probably not in violation of the university’s” conflict of interest policy “as it existed at the time.” It has since been tightened.