MDN Editor Jim Willis Interviews NY Sen. Tom Libous
MDN editor Jim Willis interviewed NY State Senator Tom Libous last Friday, March 2nd. Sen. Libous is a member of Gov. Cuomo’s Hydraulic Fracturing Advisory Panel and an influential member of the NY Senate, holding the post of Deputy Majority Leader. We spoke about his recent remarks in the New York Times and whether or not his support for drilling has changed. We also spoke about the Advisory Panel’s work and where things go from here. It’s a short and informative interview, especially for New York’s landowners who are wondering whether, and when, drilling might begin in New York.
Jim interviewed Sen. Libous as special correspondent for Energy in Depth, so head on over to this page on the EID-M website and click to listen.
Residents who live in New York townships that can’t seem to wait to ban drilling should be aware of something. These bans are bans of all gas drilling, not just horizontal hydraulic fracturing. That’s what residents in Enfield (Tompkins County), NY found out on Wednesday at a meeting with the town attorney. The Enfield town board plans to vote to enact a one-year moratorium in late April or early May, and the moratorium is on vertical as well as horizontal gas well drilling.
A second court case decision in New York, this one in Middlefield (near Cooperstown) has ruled that local municipalities have the right to ban shale gas drilling within their borders. On Friday, Feb. 24 Acting Supreme Court Justice Donald F. Cerio, Jr. ruled that a previously passed drilling ban in the Town of Middlefield in Otsego County, NY is legal. A copy of the judge’s decision is embedded below. (Note: Thank you to an MDN reader for providing this exclusive copy of the decision that comes direct from the judge’s chambers.)
Yesterday, Tompkins County (NY) Supreme Court Judge Phillip Rumsey handed anti-drillers a first, and likely short-lived, victory. He ruled that the Town of Dryden, located near Ithaca, has the right to ban shale gas drilling. As with many legal issues, this one is complicated, so let’s take a look at the case, Judge Rumsey’s decision, and what happens next.
The Town of Caroline in Tompkins County, New York is about to pass a one-year ban on hydraulic fracturing. The question is, is it legal to do so? Attorneys who understand New York State’s oil and gas law say no.
A group of 18 Tioga County, NY landowners have sued Inflection Energy to overturn Inflection’s “force majeure” claim to extend the lease on their collective 1,200 acres. A force majeure clause is written into most gas lease contracts. It means a driller can automatically extend the length of the lease if there are unforeseen events that hinder the terms of the contract—in this case commencement of drilling—from happening.
In an interview yesterday with the editorial board of the Syracuse Post-Standard, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said a decision about whether or not to allow high volume hydraulic fracturing to move forward in the state is “a couple of months” away.
A group of Chenango County, NY officials have come up with a great idea: Use the abandoned Camp Pharsalia prison facility in a very rural part of the county (sits on 52 acres, owned by the state) to drill several test Marcellus and Utica Shale wells, and use it as a living laboratory with everyone involved—the state, the drilling industry, environmental groups and academe. In other words, let’s just test this out to see if there are any problems. The experiment would be a public-private partnership between the state and the drilling industry. Brilliant!