Matt Ridley, Nick Grealy of No Hot Air blog and filmmaker Phelim MacAleer were the latest witnesses to appear before the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee inquiry into shale gas.
To tell the truth it was not particularly exciting and most of the arguments made will be familiar to readers at BH.
There was one rather interesting exchange (from about 16:15) when Phelim MacAleer described the green objectors to fracking as liars. Shortly afterwards he clarified this statement to make it clear that he was referring to the environmentalists rather than local residents in, say, Balcombe. This was followed by an objection from Lord May who, despite MacAleer's statement to the contrary a few moments earlier, accused him of calling local residents liars and suggested that this was a bit rich from someone who was representing companies like Cuadrilla, who had been found by the Advertising Standards Agency to have breached the Advertising Code.
I must say that Lord May's being able to quote the specific findings of the ASA suggests that this was a deliberate attempt to undermine a witness. This would be entirely consistent with his earlier contributions to the hearing and thus not a surprise.
If you look at the ASA findings, you discover that the ASA objected to Cuadrilla saying:
The Government's own review ... also concluded that it was safe to resume hydraulic fracturing [in the Bowland basin] ...It too set out safeguards ... and no prospect of any resulting damage.
They felt this was misleading because the government had recommended a cautious approach to be adopted when hydraulic fracturing was restarted, and the use of more sensitive seismic equipment, among other things.
Shocking stuff, I'm sure you'll agree.
That Lord May would contemplate comparing this sort of trivia to, say, Josh Fox's flaming faucets or pretty much anything coming out of Friends of the Earth is pretty surprising. That he would imply that it is worse almost defies belief.