As scrutiny increases over the relationship between oil and gas industry funding and academic research, universities are likely to take a second look at their conflict-of-interest guidelines.

As Mike Knapp examines proposed rules for his own job, he is more agreeable than expected. "I would not be averse," begins the Pennsylvania landman as he considers part of a liberal wish list for restrictions on oil and gas leasing, "to a system of registering landmen so that a landowner could verify that they are who they say they are." Most negotiations with landmen play out in the living room or at the kitchen table, so landowners need to know whom to trust, said Knapp, president of his own land acquisition company and a vice president at natural gas firm MDS Energy Development Ltd.