Don't even ask, "Is the Natural Gas Industry Buying Academics?" This is SOP. It happened so routinely during the Hudson River power plant battles of the 1960s & 70s that the opposition "scientists" became known as biostitutes & hydrowhores; it happened with the problem of acid rain; it's been happening with climate change; and now it's happening with fracking. It's a huge industry. There's a lot of money to be made bearing false witness. In 1981 at an NYU Law School meeting to discuss the so-called "Peace Pact" that settled the Hudson power plant cases, a student approached me and said that he was writing a paper about the cases and that Con Edison's lawyer, who was present at the meeting, had just told him that if the battles had gone on, Con Edison would have won, "wiped the floor" in fact with the enviros. Standing just off to my right was EPA Judge Thomas Yost who had held two years of hearings but never got the chance to rule because of the Peace Pact. ""Hey," I said to the student, "here's Judge Yost. Let's ask him." We asked. With that, Judge Yost swung his right arm over his head and exclaimed, "The utilities suck! All they can do is hire biostitutes who lie!" .