New York

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    NY DEC Signals Support for Seneca Lake Propane Storage Project

    A little good news coming from New York State for a change. The state’s Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has “quietly” given its support to the Crestwood Midstream plan to use a depleted salt cavern along the shores of Seneca Lake to be used as a propane storage facility. We’ve written about this before–about the very safe plan to use it in this manner, and about protesters like Sandra Steingraber who seem to enjoy trips to the county jail for blocking the facility, repeatedly (see Steingraber, 2 Others Sent to Jail for Refusing to Pay Fine). In February an “issues conference” was held before an administrative law judge where testimony was given by both sides–Crestwood Midstream and anti-drillers. The anti-drilling side is being funded by the odious Earthjustice and National Resources Defense Council (NRDC). The DEC has sent a brief (full copy below) saying, in essence, (a) those against the project haven’t proven this facility would bring about environmental Armageddon, as they say it would, (b) some of the loonies opposing it don’t even have standing to oppose it, and (c) no more hearings are required. The only continuing reservation we have, and the reason we’re not celebrating just yet, is that the person who will make the ultimate decision is the head of the DEC, the anti-drilling Joe Martens, a man deeply in the pocket of Big Green…
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    Andrew Cuomo: Here’s $10M Instead of Billions from Fracking

    What a pathetic loser is New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. He caves to his hard left (lunatic) fringe supporters by banning fracking–an activity that would bring BILLIONS of dollars into the state, and in its place he announces a program to grant $20 million in government welfare giveaways to lure so-called “clean energy” companies to upstate. And then he cuts that in half–to just $10 million! It’s like saying “forget that brand new $1 million Ferrari sitting over there, here’s a shiny new penny for ya.” LOSER…
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    Constitution Pipeline Re-Files for NY DEC Permit, Clock Resets

    clock resetSomething troubling for MDN. The Constitution Pipeline, a 125-mile pipeline that will stretch from the gas fields of Susquehanna County, PA into New York–to Schoharie County, has been approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), a multi-year process. The only thing keeping Williams from starting up the backhoes and beginning to lay pipeline is New York State–specifically the state’s Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC). The DEC must grant what’s called a 401 Water Quality Certificate that allows the Constitution to lay pipe through and under swamps, creeks and other bodies of water. The DEC ran a series of public hearings on it, one of which MDN editor Jim Willis attended in January (see Pro-Drillers Out in Force at Constitution Pipeline Hearing in Binghamton). The DEC was legally due to complete its review and either grant or not grant the certificate by May 8. But they’ve asked for more time, so Williams/Constitution have re-filed their permit request which starts the clock again, giving the DEC and extra two weeks to accept public comment. And therein lies our concern…
    Read More “Constitution Pipeline Re-Files for NY DEC Permit, Clock Resets”

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    Syracuse Prof Targeted in Effort to Discredit Drilling Research

    How’s this for the pot calling the kettle black: A Syracuse anti-drilling attorney says a Syracuse University professor who co-authored a research report published in the peer reviewed journal Environmental Science & Technology is ethically challenged because the prof didn’t declare a “financial interest” with Chesapeake Energy. Chesapeake is the company providing years and years of data used as the basis for the study (the only available data of its kind). With advance apologies to our many lawyer subscribers…An attorney accusing a professor of being ethically challenged? If that doesn’t beat all! We highlighted the important Syracuse research study in March (see Syracuse U Study: Fracking Doesn’t Cause Methane in PA Water Wells). The lead author is Syracuse University professor Donald Siegel. Dr. Siegel’s good work comes to the “wrong” conclusion (for anti-drillers), so he instantly became a target. Apparently Siegel “has a contract” with Chesapeake and he makes a little extra coin on the side doing work for private companies like Chesapeake (a common practice among professors). Because Siegel didn’t declare the small fees paid to him by Chesapeake as a conflict of interest when filing his research report, he’s now being targeted for reputation assassination by an anti-drilling squad…
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    Cornell Prof Admits He’s Anti-Drilling Advocate, Not Impartial

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    Tony Ingraffea

    When someone says “a professor of hydraulic fracturing from Cornell University” is bad mouthing shale drilling, it certainly grabs your attention. Cornell is a storied institution and professors at Cornell face tough competition to teach there. We’ve written plenty about Dr. Anthony Ingraffea, the Cornell prof with a bachelors degree in aerospace engineering from Notre Dame and a Ph.D. in civil engineering from the University of Colorado at Boulder–and an “expert” in hydraulic fracturing. Ingraffea has a nice sideline business of bashing fracking whenever and wherever he can–and when he does so, it is with the full reputation and backing of Cornell University behind him. We still remember the first time we heard Ingraffea in person (see Cornell Hydraulic Fracturing Expert Headlines First Meeting of New York Residents Against Drilling (NYRAD) in Vestal, NY). Ingraffea spoke about everything at that meeting–except the science of fracking. And therein is the bait and switch that Ingraffea engages in. He trades on his reputation as a geologist and scientist, and on the reputation of Cornell–yet he never attacks the actual science of fracking. To do so would be intellectual and professional suicide. It is the other, tertiary issues Ingraffea attacks–like “boom and bust” cycles, and truck traffic, and theoretical damage to water aquifers. Recently Tony finally admitted, on the record, that he’s not an impartial scientist at all when it comes to fracking. Tony himself said he’s an advocate and that he engages in advocacy–not science…
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    NY Artist “Channels” Grandma Moses to Paint Anti-Fracking Pictures

    FWIW…There is an upstate New York artist who claims famed (and dead) American folk artist Grandma Moses took over her body and guided her hand to produce–yes–anti-fracking art. You really cannot make this stuff up, it’s so off the charts bizarre. She claims her art shows the effects big oil and gas companies have had on upstate New York–except there have been no effects because there’s been no drilling! But facts never get in the way of good fiction, either on the page or on the canvass. Apparently the anti-fracking artist can’t find any museums in New York to show her Moses-inspired art, so she’s displaying (right now) at a museum in Vermont…
    Read More “NY Artist “Channels” Grandma Moses to Paint Anti-Fracking Pictures”

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    NY Frack Ban Regs “at Printer”; Is There a Potential Loophole?

    Art of the LoopholeNew York State’s anti-drilling Dept. of Environmental Conservation Commissioner, Joe Martens, is doing his best to concoct a litigation-proof Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (SGEIS). The SGEIS is the document that will find too many “troubling” aspects of fracking to allow it in New York. Except there’s potentially a loophole coming in the SGEIS, if press reports can be believed. Fracking WILL be allowed IF it uses under 300,000 gallons of “liquid”–the liquid most likely being water. (A typical well takes 5-8 million gallons of water to frack.) The NY loophole of using up to 300,000 gallons of liquid leads pro-drillers like MDN to muse: Is there an alternative liquid, other than water, that can be used to frack a well economically at under 300K gallons? What if the substance is foam and not liquid–is foam exempt from the 300K gallon cap? Or how about this: Can a driller use 299,999 gallons of water to frack a well and get enough gas out of it to break even and wait until the idiot we have in office now (Gov. Andrew Cuomo) is gone and go back later and re-frack the same well once the 300K gallon restriction is lifted? Hey, it’s fun to speculate. We’re not trying to foster false hope, but we do wonder if there’s a loophole in the SGEIS that can be exploited so landowners and drillers (the good guys) can beat extremist environmentalists like Cuomo, Martens and Yoko Ono (the bad guys)…
    Read More “NY Frack Ban Regs “at Printer”; Is There a Potential Loophole?”

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    New Report Exposes NY’s Fraudulent “Science” Used to Ban Fracking

    A new report just published by the always excellent Energy in Depth (EID) shreds to pieces the so-called science used by anti-driller and still Acting Commissioner of the New York State Health Department Howard Zucker. The report, titled “A Look Inside New York’s Anti-Fracking Echo Chamber” (full copy below) details Zucker’s use of a bunch of anti-driller-backed research reports, compiling them into a document he used as cover to recommend a ban on fracking in the Empire State. Zucker’s corruption is now exposed for the world to see. Simon Lomax from EID presented a copy of the highly damaging report to a House of Representatives committee hearing yesterday, convened to discuss state and local bans on fracking. New York officials are spitting and sputtering and backpedaling. They can’t find a rock big enough to hide under…
    Read More “New Report Exposes NY’s Fraudulent “Science” Used to Ban Fracking”

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    Going Amish? NY Nutters Push to Dump All Fossil Fuel Use by 2030

    Have you noticed how anti-drilling nutters have become even more shrill lately? They never were “reasonable” people–able to be reasoned with. But lately…wow. How about this example: A fringe collection of 70 “groups” (each “group” is a single person or perhaps half a dozen people a most) that you’ve mostly never heard of are supporting an initiative in New York called 100% Renewable Energy by 2030. They are true global warming believers–and God help you if you try and talk any sense to them on that topic. This group of 70 is attempting to build on the success of pressuring the spineless Andrew Cuomo in banning fracking by banning the use of fossil fuels by 2030. Yes, they’re totally nuts–we know that. Yes, they ignore facts like the materials used to make their precious windmills and solar panels are highly toxic and put the health of workers in places like China in constant danger. They never let facts get in the way of a good fantasy. And so now they peddle this concept that “if we only had the political will, we could be using 100% so-called renewable energy” in 15 short years. We call it psychotic…
    Read More “Going Amish? NY Nutters Push to Dump All Fossil Fuel Use by 2030”

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    ExxonMobil Donates $47M to Higher Ed, Including Marcellus Region

    ExxonMobil runs an incredibly generous program called the Educational Matching Gift Program under which they have just donated $47 million to ~900 colleges and universities across the United States. Here’s how it works: for every $1 ExxonMobil employees, retirees, directors and surviving spouses contribute to the Matching Gift Program, ExxonMobil matches it with $3. In Pennsylvania, the total pot donated to higher education was $3.8 million. In Ohio, it was $909,000. Virginia colleges are getting $1.3 million. New York State colleges and universities are getting a whopping $3.4 million–after New York State has screwed ExxonMobil royally (the company has lost millions of dollars in lease expirations when it couldn’t drill shale wells in the state because of Andrew Cuomo’s fracking ban). And yet, ExxonMobil gave money to the Empire State anyway, to some of the very schools who provide shelter and sponsor anti-drilling zealots. It shows the caliber of the people who run the company. One more: New Jersey, big users of oil and gas, but haters of pipelines and shale drilling, got $1.1 million…
    Read More “ExxonMobil Donates $47M to Higher Ed, Including Marcellus Region”

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    Sandra Steingraber’s Irrational Hatred of Fossil Fuels Continues

    There is no middle ground, no compromise, no basis on which to have a rational, intelligent discussion with a person who refuses to acknowledge reality. The reality we’re talking about is the fundamental and necessary role of petrochemicals–i.e. fossil fuels–in every society on earth, save a few jungle tribes. If you live in any modern civilization on earth today, fossil fuels make it possible. From the clothes on your body to the shoes on your feet, the chair you sit in, the carpet you walk on, the walls and roof of the house or dormitory where you live, the vehicle you drive–the materials that compose it, manufacture it and and power it are based on fossil fuels. And yet there are so-called intelligent, learned people, like Ithaca College’s Sandra Steingraber, who insist we must adopt a tribe-like existence and dump all fossil fuels–now. Forever. One of Steingraber’s favorite methods in talking about fossil fuels (and fracking) is to wax “poetic.” Her latest discourse, recently delivered at Wells College in beautiful Cayuga County, NY (Finger Lakes region), is described this way: “Rather than dissect the dispute [about fracking] through science, charts and graphs, visiting speaker Sandra Steingraber, Ph.D., instead probed the use of fossil fuels through anecdotes and imagery.” In other words, she just makes it up. She concocts erroneous analogies and stories, comparing fracking to things like smoking, and relies on her oratory skills to convince people that fracking, indeed fossil fuels in general, are from the devil himself. And young people at places like Wells College just lap it up…
    Read More “Sandra Steingraber’s Irrational Hatred of Fossil Fuels Continues”

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    New Bill Aims to Keep Drilling/Pipelines Out of Dela. River Basin

    A new bill aimed at restricting shale drilling and pipelines in the Delaware River Basin has just been re-introduced by a pair of Delaware Democrats in Congress. It flies under the name of the Delaware River Basin Conservation Act. This is the fifth time the bill has been introduced (in 2013 it was HR 644, click here for the full text of the bill). The bill would vest the already out-of-control U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service with power and money to “identify and implement conservation activities” in the Delaware River Basin. The tipoff that this is anti-drilling is that it’s being promoted by the William Penn Foundation as well as the Delaware River Basin Commission. DRBC board members say the bill doesn’t step on their toes at all. In fact, DRBC welcomes the bill because it will help with “defending environmental quality in ways that are outside of its [DRBC’s] operations.” In other words, it’s one more tool to ensure shale drilling never happens in the Delaware River Basin…
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    JLCNY Rally in NY to Support Defense of Property Rights Bill

    In January of this year, an upstate New York Congressman, Tom Reed (Corning, NY) introduced a bill that would, if adopted, provide relief to NY landowners who have been screwed over by Andrew Cuomo’s decision to ban fracking in the Empire State. The bill is called the Defense of Property Rights Act (DOPRA) and it changes “takings” laws in an important way–it changes the law to say if government action causes a landowner economic harm “in whole or in part” the landowner has a takings claim (see Federal Defense of Property Rights Act Explained; End of Frack Bans?). The “in part” language is the key because until now, the entire value had to be “taken” in order to bring a takings claim. As we pointed out back in January, this is an important law for all landowners everywhere, not just in NY–a law that prevents tyrannical politicians like Cuomo from overstepping their authority. The Joint Landowners Coalition of New York (JLCNY) is holding a rally this Saturday in Painted Post, NY to support Congressman Reed and his legislation…
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    AP Takes Swipe at NED Pipeline over Export Issue, MDN Responds

    Once again the AP attempts to make a case against Kinder Morgan’s Northeast Energy Direct (NED) pipeline project that would stretch from Pennsylvania through New York (following the Constitution Pipeline’s route) and into Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and back into Massachusetts near Boston. NED is a huge $6 billion project that will provide jobs for thousands (while it’s constructed) and abundant, cheap Marcellus Shale gas for New Englanders, saving them on the order of $1 billion per year on utility bills for decades to come. But irrational hatred of fossil fuels continues to rein in liberal New England, where many oppose the project (see Deerfield, MA Hoping Kinder Morgan Sues Them over Pipeline “Ban”). The AP has taken up the “most of the gas flowing through the pipeline will get exported” argument, in an effort to stop the pipeline (so much for unbiased “reporting”). Exported where and how? Via one of five planned LNG export facilities in Canada, four of them in Nova Scotia. Just one little problem there AP, it looks very doubtful that any of those plants will actually get built (see Moody’s: “Vast Majority” of LNG Export Projects Will be Canceled). That kind of takes the wind out of the “it’ll all get exported” argument, eh? But let’s assume at least one of those LNG export plants does get built…
    Read More “AP Takes Swipe at NED Pipeline over Export Issue, MDN Responds”

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    Cuomo’s Response to Upstate on Fracking: Shut Up, New York

    New York Post yesterday takes direct aim at the folly of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s frack ban. It calls him out for promoting an “economic development” program that so far has spent $28 million on advertising and has created 78 jobs ($368,000 per job). Cuomo is an utter failure on so many levels. In talking about the frack ban, we loved this particular passage from the column (and you will too)…
    Read More “Cuomo’s Response to Upstate on Fracking: Shut Up, New York”

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    Mike Bloomberg Gives Sierra Club $30M to Fight Coal, But Loves Gas

    Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is one conflicted dude. On the one hand he loves natural gas (a fossil fuel) and thinks we should have more of it, and on the other hand he hates coal. So get this… On Wednesday Bloomberg attended a big soiree where he handed a personal check for $30 million (part of a $110 million donation) to the nutters of the Sierra Club to further fund their “Beyond Coal” campaign. At the event he was asked if he would be supporting the Sierra Club’s Beyond Natural Gas campaign. He said no. He not only said no, he went on (later in the day) to devastate every argument the Sierra Club has against natural gas. Bloomberg, in a Wall Street Journal interview on Wednesday, took pot shots at Andrew Cuomo’s anti-fracking ban. Bloomberg loves gas but hates coal. Like we said, one conflicted dude…
    Read More “Mike Bloomberg Gives Sierra Club $30M to Fight Coal, But Loves Gas”