IOGCC: Introducing the Oil and Gas Lobbying Compact

About the Series

This DeSmog investigative series explores the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission (IOGCC), the most influential oil and gas lobbying organization very few have heard of. 

IOGCC is a quasi-governmental agency based in Oklahoma City and located on property adjacent to the Governor’s Mansion and on Oklahoma state property. The IOGCC is focused on oil and gas regulations, these days mostly centering around the issue of hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”), and consists of appointees selected by the governors of the 38 oil and gas producing states, plus eight Canadian provinces and three countries as international affiliates.

Often those appointees are lobbyists or industry attorneys. IOGCC’s membership roster is dominated by lobbyists and executives, which goes a long way in explaining how and why things work the way they do in the IOGCC, as well as in U.S. energy policy more broadly.

DeSmog’s ongoing investigation will explain IOGCC‘s policy impacts and reach, its misleading public relations efforts, the revolving door between industry, governement and the organization, and its legally nebulous status as both exempt from open records requests and also receiving little congressional oversight. 

In This Series

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During its first year under Donald Trump, the U.S. Department of Interior has coordinated closely with the oil and gas industry to accomplish its priorities on the nation's expansive federal lands....
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Confidential sources have told Politico that Bill Cooper — current congressional staffer and former fossil fuel industry lobbyist and attorney — is under consideration to head President Donald Trum...
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With U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) in the midst of Senate confirmation hearings, watchdog group Food and Water Watch has raised new questions about how Sessions and his family profited from a frac...
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U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL), President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for U.S. Attorney General, introduced the first so-called “Halliburton Loophole” bill back in 1999 before it was ever known...
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In a ruling on the Obama Administration's proposed regulations of hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) on U.S. public lands, U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming Judge Scott Skavdahl — a Pr...
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Emails and documents obtained from Oklahoma State University (OSU) under the state's open records law depict an arrangement in which former U.S. Sen. Don Nickles (R-OK) donated his U.S. Senate pape...
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At the opening session of the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission (IOGCC)'s recent annual business meeting held in Denver, Colorado, the commission's Nebraska state representative Bill Sydow ...
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On May 4, several environmental organizations filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), calling for an end to the regulatory exemption it carved out in the late 1980s ...
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At the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission (IOGCC)'s 2016 meeting in Denver, Colorado this week, a representative from a prominent oil and gas lobbying group advocated that auctions of federa...
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Earthquakes caused by injection of shale oil and gas production wastes — and methane leakage from shale gas pipelines — have proliferated in recent years, with both issues well-studied in the scien...
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The Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission (IOGCC) is far from a household name, but a new investigation published by InsideClimate News' Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Lisa Song ...