Motives of Anti-Drilling Groups Exposed in NY Post Editorial

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The headline of a recent editorial in The New York Post says “Frack, baby, frack!” in a play on the oft-quoted phrase “drill, baby, drill.” It is a short but good piece, summarizing where New York stands on drilling in the Marcellus Shale. It encourages newly elected Gov. Andrew Cuomo to either lift the drilling moratorium immediately, or let it expire in July, so drilling can (finally) go forward.

One of the interesting points made in the editorial is that the motives of environmental groups in opposing drilling are not 100 percent pure as the wind-driven snow, which is what they want you to believe. The truth is, opposing Marcellus drilling is “good for business.”

Hard-core lefties and environmental groups say the process — which is banned only in New York — contaminates groundwater.

But those claims are refuted by the official state geologist, who calls them “exaggerated” and says he’s found no evidence of such contamination in three years of study.

“This could really help us fight climate change,” said Dr. Langhorne “Taury” Smith, who works for the State Museum, in an interview with an upstate newspaper. “This is a huge gift, this shale.”

On the other hand, the controversy over the shale, he said, has been a gold mine for environmental groups — which have raised funds by alarming folks about the alleged dangers of hydrofracking.

What about our lawmakers? Certainly their motives are pure and just, no?

[The drilling moratorium] also had the strong support of Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.

No surprise there — as The Post first reported in January, Silver’s law firm, Weitz & Luxenberg, holds regular “forums” in gas-drilling states, searching for clients interested in suing natural-gas developers.*

Be sure to read the entire editorial. MDN thanks Tom Shepstone for the tip on the Post editorial.

*New York Post (Mar 20, 2011) – Frack, baby, frack!

5 Comments

  1. Tax, baby tax is the only way NY is able to sustain itself in recent years. It has driven businesses and too many gainfully employed people out of state just to avoid the burden. What does that leave? A decreasing number of residents to support necessary infrastructure expenditures, and an increasing number of the unemployed. The Empire State has allowed itself to crumble to a bare bones economy @ a time when its bounty of natural resources has come to light.

    So why the outcry from the environmentalists? Like all residents they don’t want to see this beautiful state turn into a chemical cesspool. Does environmentally sound drilling mean NO drilling? Not for those who understand the importance of a well-worded lease written by knowledgeable people means both sides of the fence can be accomodated. Anti-drilling factions are not all environmentalists. Deeper pockets than those of individual contributors to “the cause” are those owned by drilling concerns in other drilling productive regions of our country and abroad. Their economies are seeing a downturn as companies seek to leave their territories and become a part of the Marcellus/ Utica action. THINK.

    We learned to live with cars, nuclear energy, microwave ovens, airplanes … even though there were loud protests to the harmful effects of each. A future well planned for is not a future to fear.