Fracking has been a pretty hot topic around these parts over the last year. One of the companies going door to door locally, snatching up as many leases as possible, was Chesapeake Energy. Now Rolling Stone‘s Jeff Goodell has taken aim at billionaire Aubrey McClendon, the man behind Chesapeake. A primer on McClendon, from early in the story:
“McClendon is an influential right-wing power broker — he helped fund the Swift Boat attacks against John Kerry in 2004, donated $250,000 to the presidential campaign of Rick Perry, and contributed more than $500,000 to stop gay marriage. But unlike his fellow energy czars, McClendon knows how to tone down his politics and present a friendlier, less ideological face to the public. He secretly gave $26 million to the Sierra Club to fight Big Coal, and built a Google-like campus for Chesapeake’s 4,600 employees in Oklahoma City, complete with a 63,000-square-foot day care center, a luxurious gym and four cafes manned by cook-to-order chefs. He even voted for Barack Obama because he thought the country needed ‘an inspirational figure.'”
It’s fascinating tale for anyone interested in the subject. Read the rest here.
