Shale Gas and America’s Future, a 30-minute, made-for-TV film about the country’s natural gas drilling boom, has been released by the American Clean Skies Foundation (ACSF), a pro-natural gas industry group.

ACSF said the film “provides a unique look at how local communities in Pennsylvania are balancing the tradeoffs related to gas drilling for themselves and the nation. The film explores the issues from all sides and features community meetings, unique drilling footage, 3-D animation and interviews with the state’s top environmental regulator.”

The film supplements an ACSF-supported website launched this summer, www.shalecountry.com. The website features 12 first-person video stories about people caught up in the shale gas boom from Louisiana, Arkansas and Pennsylvania. The website also provides footage of a roundtable discussion between ACSF CEO Gregory Staple and independent film producer Josh Fox, who created Gasland, a film that has been much decried by the gas industry for misrepresenting the risks of hydraulic fracturing well stimulation (see Daily GPI, July 12).

“This film goes beyond other movies by showing the whole hydrofracking process and what local citizens and state regulators are doing to limit potential environmental problems. It also puts local issues into context,” said Staple. “The film talks about why we are drilling for gas — jobs, energy independence, the climate.”

The film can be viewed and ordered on DVD at www.shalegasfuture.com.