Imagine a corporation, through its public relations firm, paying for a study of itself. Actually, this is not an uncommon practice. In this case the study purportedly estimates the economic impact on Santa Barbara County of Aera Energy’s proposed massive oil project in Cat Canyon, between Santa Maria and Los Alamos.
Consider further that the report admits, in its executive summary, that it relied primarily on information provided by Aera itself, the subject of the study. In the 2015 report by UCSB’s Economic Forecast Project (EFP), the limited set of self-reported and unverified data was simply entered into an economic model which then churned out results. Sounds like the old computer concept known as “GIGO” — Garbage In, Garbage Out.
Aera is also a paying advisory sponsor of the Economic Forecast Project. So, we have self-serving and unreliable input data that is used by a “research” organization that is biased by its financial ties to the very company it claims to study. You can’t make this stuff up.