The Rising Influence of Rising Affluence

[DewDiligence]

The SEC is taking it cues from the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/30/us/30gas.html

The Securities and Exchange Commission sent subpoenas this week to energy companies asking them for documents about how they calculate and publicly disclose the performance of their shale gas wells, according to oil and gas industry lawyers. The subpoenas reflect the regulators’ interest in determining whether companies are overstating how their gas wells perform and how much gas these companies can profitably extract over the long term.

…According to several oil and gas industry lawyers, the subpoenas are in response to articles published in June in The New York Times, which showed that a range of industry and federal officials had questioned whether shale gas companies might be playing down costs or inflating their predictions about well performance.

If government officials learn about the oil & gas industry by reading the New York Times, we’re all in a lot of trouble.