As part of the new Marcellus drilling regulations in New York, DEC Commissioner Joe Martens created a Hydraulic Fracturing Advisory Panel. The new panel is initially composed of 13 people from environmentalist organizations, with a few industry and elected officials thrown in (see the list here). Panel members are charged with making suggestions to Martens on fracking in New York—oversight of how the DEC implements it, and potential changes to make it better.

An excellent analysis piece from Tom Shepstone at the Energy in Depth Northeast Marcellus Initiative website exposes the stacked deck Martens has created and poses the very real possibility that Martens is intentionally trying to undermine Gov. Andrew Cuomo on the issue of drilling in New York.

Read More “NY DEC Commissioner Joe Martens Stacks New Fracking Panel with Anti-Drillers”

You can now download a preliminary copy of New York’s new Marcellus drilling regulations at the Energy in Depth Northeast Marcellus Initiative website. This is an incomplete draft released on released July 1, 2011 to some members of the media at the NY Department of Environmental Conservation’s press conference last Friday. This incomplete draft has 736 pages of the final draft report which will be 900+ pages, due to be released in two days (on July 8).

Read More “Preliminary (but Incomplete) Copy of New York Marcellus Drilling Regulations Available for Download”