Cynthia & Geo Mitchell Foundation

The foundation focuses on improving the governance of shale development in addition to supporting efforts to reduce the negative environmental and community impacts of shale gas development.The unresolved challenges related to shale development and natural gas can be divided into two broad categories. The first set of questions involves natural gas as a fuel source, including to what extent fugitive methane emissions occur and how these emissions can be minimized and to what extent abundant natural gas displaces renewable energy and energy efficiency in electricity generation.The second set of questions involves the risk of impact from hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling to develop shale formations. These technologies have a distinct risk to the environment and communities, but these risks can be economically managed.The Shale Sustainability Program supports a number of solution-driven strategies, including:1. Examination of the interplay between federal, state, and local gove