Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper will speak tonight on natural gas development at the University of Colorado at Boulder campus as part of a lecture series on hydraulic fracturing.

Hickenlooper, a Democrat, has come under fire from environmentalists for his stance on the fracturing process—also known as “fracking”—which is used to help extract natural gas from the earth. Earlier this year, he told a United States Senate committee that he once drank fracking fluid produced by Halliburton as proof the liquid was safe.

The governor in the past has praised natural gas as a clean transition fuel from carbon-based fossil fuels and has battled representatives in his own party who have been unhappy with what they’ve viewed as Hickenlooper’s strong pro-gas and pro-oil stances. During a fracking debate last month at the University of Denver, three people were removed after they heckled the governor.

Hickenlooper’s CU visit will begin at 6:30 p.m. in Mathematics Room 100. His visit is part of a lecture series, called “FrackingSENSE” and is sponsored by the AirWaterGas Research Network, Boulder County, the Center of the American West, and CU Continuing Education. Among those who will speak in the future are Dan Grossman, the regional director for the Environmental Defense Fund’s Rocky Mountain Regional Office; and Bernie Goldstein, dean of the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public Health.

For more information on hydraulic fracturing read 5280’s report, “Beneath the Surface,” which ran in December 2012.