Elected Democrats Tell Cuomo to Continue Fracking Moratorium
A new partisan effort is under way to pressure New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to just keep the hydraulic fracturing moratorium in place for another year, and another year, and another year…
This effort is to get elected officials throughout the state to sign a letter which asks Cuomo to keep the moratorium in place, “until analyses have thoroughly and properly evaluated the potential health, economic, and cumulative environmental impacts on local communities.” Of course that very analysis has been going on now for four years, so may we presume another four years or more is what they’re asking for?
So far, the “letter” (which is really a website with a form on it) has 306 signatures (as of June 7) from elected representatives—everything from town clerks to county legislators to mayors—virtually of them Democrats.
You can find the letter and the list of signatories (people you should vote out of office), here: //www.nyelectedofficials.org/.
Binghamton Mayor Matt Ryan’s folly, a symbolic ban on hydraulic fracturing within the city, has now come back to bite him in the rear end. His folly will cost Binghamton City taxpayers a lot of money as the city has now been sued over their illegal ban, passed at the eleventh hour last December before Ryan was about to lose a majority of support from the Binghamton City Council in January (voters tossing out some of the all-Democrat council members in the last election).
This is big news folks. You may recall that the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is conducting a multi-year study of hydraulic fracturing in a transparent attempt to seize control of oil and gas drilling in the U.S.—grabbing that control away from the individual states who are empowered under the U.S. Constitution to regulate drilling in their own states. As part of the EPA study, they are analyzing water samples in locations where there has been a lot of shale gas fracking (
Ohio legislators have been working to craft new shale oil and gas drilling rules that will do more to protect the environment, and at the same time, help protect the fledgling shale drilling industry in the state. New legislation passed in committee yesterday that will now go to the full House includes a provision to help prevent frivolous lawsuits brought by deep-pocketed anti-drilling groups, like the Ohio Environmental Council and the Sierra Club. These groups, who are opposed to expanded use of fossil fuels, use the legal system to tie up shale drillers in court and force them to spend huge sums of money as a tactic to reduce fossil fuel mining and use.