NY Republican Candidate for Governor Wants to Reverse Frack Ban
Candidate for governor of New York State running on the Republican line, Lee Zeldin, is pushing to reverse the now-permanent ban on fracking in the state. The frack ban was enacted into law as part of a sneaky budget bill Andrew Cuomo signed in 2020 while everyone was distracted with COVID (see Cuomo PERMANENTLY Bans NY Fracking in Now-Adopted Budget). One of Zeldin’s key campaign planks is to allow fracking for natural gas (and oil) in the state. Is this possible? Or is it false hope?
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Two days ago, MDN mused over the issue of whether or not there will EVER be fracking in New York State (see 
One of the questions MDN editor Jim Willis (who lives in New York State) often gets at family gatherings and the occasional conference (when folks find out he writes about “fracking” and “shale energy”) is this: “Will New York ever get fracking?” Jim’s tongue-in-cheek answer is, “When pigs fly!” The slightly longer answer is that the ignominious politician Andrew Cuomo, while he was governor, slipped a permanent ban on fracking into law as part of the 2020 state budget bill (see 
National Fuel Gas Company (NFG) and its pipeline subsidiary Empire Pipeline have worked on a plan to build the Northern Access Pipeline since 2016. Northern Access is a 97-mile project from McKean County in Pennsylvania into and through Allegany, Cattaraugus and Erie counties in New York, that will flow Marcellus gas into New York State. The project was repeatedly delayed by the radicals of the Andrew Cuomo (now Kathy Hochul) administration. NFG says it still wants to build the project, but needs more time. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) just gave NFG an extra 35 months to get the project done.
Big Green groups are rejoicing that they have convinced a New York State judge to rule that an existing natural gas-fired power plant on the banks of the Hudson River, Danskammer Energy, will not be allowed to upgrade its gas turbines from older, more polluting turbines to newer, more efficient and less polluting turbines. Such is the evil mind of Big Green that they rejoice in such a “victory.” Big Green, including the Sierra Club and Earthworks, prefers more pollution rather than allowing a company to improve operations for those who live nearby. How whacked is that?
In April the New York State Assembly passed Assembly Bill A7389C. Early Friday morning the New York State Senate, on the last day of the current session, passed the same bill, sending it to Gov. Kathy Hochul’s desk for a signature. A7389C (full copy below) slaps a two-year moratorium on cryptocurrency mining (i.e. bitcoin mining) powered by electricity generated from burning fossil fuels. Here’s how it works in New York (we’ve seen this multiple times): First comes a moratorium that lasts a year or two, then the moratorium gets extended, and eventually the moratorium turns into an outright, permanent ban. That’s how it worked with fracking, and that’s how it will work with bitcoin mining in New York, a state that has become extremely hostile to business.
National Grid is desperately trying not to run out of natural gas for its customers in Brooklyn and Queens (on Long Island). For several years the company has fought a battle to run a tiny pipeline to its Greenpoint, Brooklyn facility, to provide extra natural gas. That project is being investigated by the Biden administration on charges of racism (see 
National Grid is desperately trying not to run out of natural gas for its customers in Brooklyn and Queens (on Long Island). For several years the company has fought a battle to run a tiny pipeline to its Greenpoint, Brooklyn facility, to provide extra natural gas. That project is being investigated by the Biden administration on charges of racism (see 
Tennessee Gas Pipeline’s (TGP) plan to flow more Marcellus gas to Westchester County, NY and New York City for Consolidated Edison customers, called the East 300 Upgrade Project, took a giant leap forward last Thursday when the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued permits that allow TGP to upgrade two existing compressor stations (in PA), and build a brand new compressor station in West Milford (Passaic County, NJ), just across the border and not far from Westchester County. This is a major victory and a sign this project will now get completed.
Despots and dictators the world over are the same, whether it’s Vladimir Putin relabeling his naked aggression of outright war against Ukraine a “military operation,” or New York State’s so-called Climate Action Council relabeling natural gas as “fossil gas.” Tyrants seek to relabel those things they can’t control in an attempt to pressure, hoodwink, and manipulate the masses–to force others into doing what they (the tyrants) want done. The Communists who run NY state can’t convince the population to self-immolate by giving up the use of natural gas, so they’re changing the language, hoping to convince more people to go along with their harebrained plan to dump the use of all “fossil fuels.” The left’s plan is energy suicide and a majority of New Yorkers instinctively know it.
New York’s corrupt Governor, Kathy Hochul, learned well from her mentor, sexual predator (and extremely corrupt) Gov. Andrew Cuomo, when it comes to forcing her will on the citizens of New York. Cuomo snuck a permanent fracking ban into the state budget two years ago (see