Cuomo & DiNapoli: Asleep at Sales Tax Switch in NY Southern Tier
MDN has long chronicled the sad situation for landowners in New York State with a moratorium that is, as of today, 5 years and 20 days old. It has had catastrophic economic consequences for New York, especially for those who live in the Southern Tier of the state–that area along the mid-state “southern” border with Pennsylvania (Broome, Tioga, Chemung, Steuben counties). Gov. Andrew Cuomo is spineless on the fracking issue–that much is clear. He won’t stand up to the shrill and unreasonable voices in his own party. No one will take him seriously on the national stage. Cuomo’s rising star has become a shooting star–straight down.
Thomas DiNapoli, NY State Comptroller, is clearly an avowed anti-driller. We’ve brought you a number of stories that illustrate his disdain for drilling (see MDN stories about DiNapoli here). We find it particularly offensive and hypocritical (although not surprising) that DiNapoli has just issued a report that shows sales tax revenue is up in most of the state’s counties, but down in Southern Tier counties–down a lot. DiNapoli bemoans the fact that the Southern Tier continues to take it in the neck–yet he makes no mention of how shale drilling could instantly reverse the economic misery of Southern Tier residents. Typical politician–identify the problem but offer no solutions…
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A good news/bad news story. The good news is that Chesapeake Energy is giving up the legal fight with landowners in New York to extend their leases beyond the original lease term. MDN has long chronicled the fight on the part of landowners to stop Chesapeake from claiming force majeure to extend leases signed for (in some cases) just a few dollars per acre–leases signed long before horizontal drilling and fracking were contemplated (see 
The “little energy company that could” has become the “little energy company sunk by Andrew Cuomo.” A pair of press releases from Norse Energy Corp. yesterday tell the sad story. Norse, with 130,000 leased acres in New York State (most of it in the Marcellus & Utica Shale) had been hanging on by a thread, waiting for shale drilling to begin. The company filed for bankruptcy last December, clinging to the promise that Cuomo and the state Dept. of Environmental Conservation were about to release new fracking rules (see 
Time to fly the flags at half staff. Why? It seems that freedom and liberty in New York State have died. Tyranny has slowly crept in and has now taken up residence in the Empire State. For five long years, landowners in New York have been denied their Constitutional property rights to allow shale drilling on and under their land, and frankly, there’s no end in sight to this travesty of justice. Oh, we New Yorkers have not given up! As Winston Churchill once famously said, NEVER!