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NY Attorney General Schneiderman Subpoenas Shale Drillers

New York’s anti-drilling Attorney General, Eric T. Schneiderman, continues to target the shale gas industry. On May 31, he filed a lawsuit in federal court seeking to force the federal government to conduct a full environmental review of hydraulic fracturing before the Delaware River Basin Commission be allowed to permit drilling in its jurisdiction (see MDN’s story here). The federal government has since asked the judge in the case to toss out the lawsuit.

Now, based on a questionable article that appeared in the New York Times, written by anti-drilling author Ian Urbina (who used an intern as one of his main sources for the article), Schneiderman is using (misusing?) the considerable power of his office to target energy companies involved with shale gas drilling by sending them subpoenas for documents to “prove” their statements on shale gas reserves are accurate. The Times article claimed energy companies knowingly overstate the production of gas wells, understate how much it costs to get the gas, and intentionally inflate numbers for how much natural gas exists in shale formations.

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