NY Gov. Cuomo’s So-Called Friends Target His Girlfriend Sandra Lee in Fracking Fight

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Some of Andy Cuomo’s “friends” have decided they want to politically rough him up a bit because of his support for lifting the ban on hydraulic fracturing. The ever-loving, open-minded and ultra-tolerant left (sarcasm intended) is bringing out the long knives and going after Gov. Cuomo’s live-in girlfriend and Food Network starlet Sandra Lee, in an attempt to pressure Cuomo to re-think lifting the fracking moratorium.

An environmental health group that opposes hydraulic fracturing is demanding that Gov. Andrew Cuomo explain his live-in girlfriend Sandra Lee’s speaking appearance in March before “a conference of petroleum executives.”

The group, Washington-based Food & Water Watch, suggests that Lee, a Food Network celebrity, may have been paid to speak to pro-hydrofracking industry executives as a way of currying favor with her gubernatorial companion.

Lee is exempt from disclosure provisions that would apply if she was married to Cuomo or was a public official in her own right. Thus the identity of the group to which she spoke, and any compensation she was paid, have not been made public.

But Food & Water Watch did some sleuthing on its own, and speculates that she was addressing a meeting of executives from the National Fuel Gas Co., a suburban Buffalo firm that operates a large gas pipeline and storage system in New York and Pennsylvania and sells natural gas directly to consumers. As F&WW notes, it also has an exploration and drilling arm, Seneca Resources, that is heavily invested in the Marcellus shale.*

A copy of the open letter sent by F&WW to Gov. Cuomo (and released to the media) is embedded below.

MDN asks: So what if Sandra Lee was paid to speak to a group of energy executives? She broke no laws. The best that Food & Water Watch can do is try to embarrass Gov. Cuomo, which of course is just what they are attempting to do. With friends like that…

*Rochester Democrat and Chronicle (Jul 13, 2011) – Say it ain’t so, Sandra Lee!

One Comment

  1. If Mr. Cuomo is part of the morally superior crowd, like, oh, Jim DeMint and his bigoted friends in “The Family,” then the criticism is completely justified.