A report from the University of Minnesota Duluth about the proposed Line 3 oil pipeline replacement project is coming under fire over concerns about whether the findings are based on accurate data.
Transcript
HOST: A report from the University of Minnesota Duluth about the Line 3 oil pipeline replacement project is coming under fire over concerns about whether it based its findings, on accurate data.
Reporter Melissa Townsend has the story.
REPORTER: In Duluth Minnesota there is a group called APEX.
It's a membership organization made up of business leaders interested in increasing industry in the Duluth region.
HANSON: My name is Brian Hanson and I’m CEO of APEX.
Earlier this year APEX CEO Brian Hanson asked the University of Minnesota Duluth’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research to do an economic impact analysis of the Line 3 pipeline.
That’s basically a report projecting how much money the company will spend in the region over two years to build the pipeline.
The Enbridge company supplied UMD with data to run the analysis.
After the report was released, The Duluth News Tribune quoted its findings in two different editorials that voiced support for the Enbridge Line 3 pipeline replacement project.
But in November -that's just last month - an outside watchdog group cried foul.
Derek Seidman is a researcher at the Public Accountability Initiative.
SEIDMAN: Ultimately when you go back to where this report is coming from, it’s coming from Enbridge and its allies who have a vested interest obviously in the results of the report.
Seidman points out that representatives from Enbridge, UMD and the Duluth News Tribune all sit on the Board of Directors of APEX.
And the group has publicly declared its support for the pipeline.
Basically Seidman says that connection casts doubt on UMD’s ability to be objective in it's report.
Seidman’s claims got the attention of some American Indians who already have deep concerns about the pipeline.
HOUSKA: I’m angry by this.
Tara Houska, with Honor the Earth, is skeptical of the findings in the report.
HOUSKA: I’m angry at the fact that the University of Minnesota, as a research institution, is using data provided by a company who has a vested interest in a certain outcome and saying that the researchers reached this conclusions.
Brian Hanson with APEX says no one there tried to influence the UMD report.
HANSON: They asked for facts, those facts were shared and the model created the results and BBER reported on them.
Researchers and academics in universities around the country routinely create these kinds of reports for outside business groups.
At issue is whether companies overtly or subtly pressure schools to produce reports that make their projects look good.
Some professors say that does happen.
Josh Drucker is Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois in Chicago.
DRUCKER: Someone who is familiar with impact analysis can definitely manipulate it. They can choose to make the numbers higher or smaller based on their assumptions.
I asked him if he thought it was a problem that Enbridge supplied data for this report.
DRUCKER: I wouldn’t say that it’s automatically contaminated. No, I would not think that.
Professor Drucker read the UMD report and says nothing about it seems irregular.
That said, Drucker says we don’t know if Enbridge exaggerated or misstated the amount of money it will spend or the number of workers it will hire.
DRUCKER: You have to consider that these are estimates, there are errors in there. So what you should do instead is test a lot of different assumptions, try things in different ways. What if the amount of construction spending by the pipeline company is 10% higher or 10% lower, how do those change your results, give a range.
The research team at UMD’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research did not do that.
Monica Haynes is the Director of the BBER at UMD.
REPORTER: Let me just ask you for the record, did Enbridge or APEX ask you to make a favorable report?
HAYNES: No, they did not.
While Haynes says Enbridge did not ask her staff to create a false report, Haynes says in the future she thinks she will be more transparent about relationships that might raise doubts about the BBER’s work.
HAYNES: Knowing now that there could be more attention paid to that, we are going to be more aware of it. I don’t know if we would necessarily turn down a project because of a conflict of interest with the university, but we would be more careful about disclosing those in the future.
In addition, Rolf Weberg from UMD’s Natural Resources Research Institute has resigned from the Board of APEX and ended his department’s membership..
He told me he doesn’t want his department to be involved in any organization that advocates for specific projects.
For Minnesota Native News, I’m Melissa Townsend.