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Oklahoma Oil Executive Told OU Dean He Wanted Earthquake Scientists Fired

Harold Hamm, the billionaire founder and CEO of Continental Resources told a University of Oklahoma dean he wanted scientists dismissed who were researching links between oil and gas activity and this state’s earthquake surge, Bloomberg’s Benjamin Elgin reports.

“Mr. Hamm is very upset at some of the earthquake reporting to the point that he would like to see select OGS staff dismissed,” wrote Larry Grillot, the dean of the university’s Mewbourne College of Earth and Energy, in a July 16, 2014, e-mail to colleagues at the university.

The emails, obtained through Oklahoma’s Open Records Act, refer to a 90-minute meeting held in July 2014 about scientists at the Oklahoma Geological Survey, a state agency that is hosted by the University of Oklahoma, Bloomberg reports:

Hamm also expressed an interest in joining a search committee charged with finding a new director for the geological survey, according to Grillot’s e-mail. And, the dean wrote, Hamm indicated that he would be “visiting with Governor [Mary] Fallin on the topic of moving the OGS out of the University of Oklahoma.”

Hamm's request wasn’t fulfilled, and Grillot said he never relayed the oil billionaire’s “displeasure” to OGS staff, Bloomberg reports.