House Speaker Joe Hackney chose a number of professors for a task force on offshore drilling.
The Chapel Hill Democrat named half of the 24 members of a task force that could spend as much as $100,000 and over a year looking into the state's position on drilling off the coast.
Doug Rader, chief ocean scientist for the N.C. Environmental Defense Fund and the member of an earlier panel that came out against drilling, was his choice for co-chair. Rader has previously criticized proposals for offshore drilling.
Other Hackney appointees include professors of civil engineering, economics, marine sciences and geosciences; the owner of an oil distributor; the representative of a natural gas company; and a former Cabinet secretary.
After the jump, the names and job titles of Hackney's 12 appointees.
Related: Basnight's appointees to drilling task force
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Doug Rader: Chief ocean scientist for the N.C. Environmental Defense Fund and panel member of a task force on drilling that advised Gov. Jim Martin in the early 1990s.
Lawrence Cahoon: Professor of biology and marine biology at UNC-Wilmington.
Joel J. Ducoste: Associate professor of civil, construction and environmental engineering at N.C. State University.
Edward S. Holmes Jr.: Owner of Holmes Oil Co., a BP and ExxonMobil distributor based in Chapel Hill and 2008 president of the N.C. Petroleum Marketers and Convenience Stores Association.
Jamie Brown Kruse: Economics professor at East Carolina University and director of the Center for Natural Hazards Research.
Hans W. Paerl: Professor at UNC-Chapel Hill Institute of Marine Sciences in Morehead City.
Jane Smith Patterson: e-NC Authority executive director and former secretary of the N.C. Department of Administration.
M. Paul Sherman: Director of Air and Energy Programs at the N.C. Farm Bureau.
Rob Young: Professor of geosciences and director of the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines at Western Carolina University.
Jeffrey D. Warren: Coastal hazards specialist with the N.C. Division of Coastal Management and development geologist for Phillips Petroleum Co. in east Texas.
John M. Monaghan Jr.: Community relations manager for the Piedmont Natural Gas Co.
W. Hugh Thompson: Former petroleum engineer in Texas and Raleigh lawyer.
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Re: Hackney's appointees to drilling task force
Again, this task force does not past the smell test. Why would Hackney reappoint someone as vice-chair who is dead set against the taxpayers in NC? Will they have secret meetings like the Democrats in the legislature love, and will they give this a fair shake.
Maybe the voters will wake up over the next years and bring some honesty and transparency back to our government.