The Department of Justice plans to spend up to half-a-million dollars to study whether oil and gas booms brought about through hydraulic fracturing contribute to high rates of sexual assault.
The department laid out the scope of the study in a solicitation released on June 6. DOJ’s research division, the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), announced that it expects to pay up to $500,000 for the effort.
"Anecdotal information from meetings with public and private service providers and community members has revealed that the oil industry camps may be impacting domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking in the direct and surrounding communities in which they reside," it adds.
The goals of the study track closely with left-wing attacks on hydraulic fracturing, an oil and natural gas extraction technique that is often vilified by opponents of traditional energy sources.
The NIJ did not respond to a request for additional information on the anecdotal evidence for spikes in sexual assaults and domestic violence in affected areas.
Steve Everley, a spokesman for Energy In Depth, a site run by the Independent Petroleum Association of America, dismissed the suggestion that any rise in sexual or domestic violence reflects on the industry.
"DOJ apparently thinks these incidents are endemic to and more likely within the oil and gas industry, which is not only untrue, but also very troubling in terms of how the federal government has singled out one industry for increased scrutiny," Everley said in an email.
Reports from officials in some North Dakota towns have noted a rise in sexual assaults, but have also noted even larger increases in other types of crimes, such as burglaries, suggesting the trend is not specific to crimes of a sexual or domestic nature.
A New York Times report in January offered a number of anecdotes about sexual assault cases in Williston, N.D. Statistics on crime in Williston in 2012 showed a 48 percent increase in criminal cases.
Everley attributes that rise to Williston’s massive population growth, brought on by the oil and gas boom there.
"The growing oil industry in the Dakotas and Montana has generated tremendous opportunity and economic development," the NIJ solicitation notes.
That trend has spurred local population growth, which could be expected to entail a relative rise in crime, Everley said.
"Any increase in economic development is going to bring a corresponding increase in the need for social services, including law enforcement," he noted.