There is not likely to be any fracking ban in New York as long as the Republicans control the state senate. In fact, most bills that address fracking may not make it out of committees controlled by State Senate Republicans. Fortunately, there’s something you (who can actually vote in New York) can do about it. This year. . . .
Get rid of the Republican majority in the senate and you may have half a chance at a fracking ban - or at least a damn-sight better chance than the slim chance you have now. And maybe actually get some fracking bills out of committees that aren’t controlled by The Best Politicians That Money Can Buy.
Only takes 3 to tango to get control of the senate. Here’s a good place to start: Get rid of Senator Tom Libous - the worst fracking $hill in Albany. Tom Libous is 2nd in command behind Skelos. (And Skelos is shale $hill Jerry Kremer’s partner.)
http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/fracking-hearing-in-manhattan-20111130
Tom Libous is a fracking $hill, with his own rather lame shale $hill site:
http://www.libous.campaignoffice.com/
Tom Libous is damaged goods - caught up in a scandal involving a fracking lobbyist and his son’s law firm:
http://shaleshock.org/2012/03/shale-shill-tom-libous-shills-for-son-in-downstate-bribery-scandal/
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/sen_libous_on_A1WxoziPGxigFaI5pVibyO
What more could you ask for ? A shale $hill, a $candal, it’s all there. Tom Libous is a low hanging pinata. Do the right thing. No blindfold required. Come election day, adios Tommy.
http://www.theithacajournal.com/article/20120306/NEWS01/120306014/
Here’s the rest of the hit parade. Check page 12 - and tee up whoever cashed the check : http://www.scribd.com/doc/77780905/Gas-Lobby-in-NY
Fortunately there is a litmus tests in the Senate. (That’s what litmus is for. . . ) The Home Rule Bill should be conformed to the Dryden and Middlefield rulings. And it should be voted on and passed by summer’s end. Or all the state senators that did not support Home Rule should be fracked out of a job. Personally would spare Senator Jim Seward - whose stance on Home Rule could get him elected in any state west of the Mississippi. Maybe because it’s the law in every state west of the Mississippi . . . Ditto Greg Ball - my kind of Republican.
The rest of the lot - throw them out on election day. Want the DEC to straighten up and fly right ? A Democratic majority could help. And failing that, might need to work on this political party animal :
http://www.scribd.com/doc/79698035/Andrew-Cuomo-Image-Frackinstein
Get focused on the upcoming New York state races - you heard it here last . . .
James “Chip” Northrup
http://www.scribd.com/northrup49
Cris McConkey says
I just would like to point out that when I went petitioning in my town for a ban, I found appreciable support among Republicans. It has been demonstrated consistently in town after town that the support for a ban is widely felt and cannot be characterized as a partisan issue.
Bram Loeb says
I will vote for ANYONE but Libous… as for OBAMA, he is a PRO FRACKER. I will NEVER vote for the lesser of 2 evils. EVIL is EVIL… vote Green Party- Jill Stein, or Justice Party - Rocky Anderson, if you care about 1. Banning Fracking 2. Restoring our constitution 3. Taking our country back from Corporate control. POWER to THE PEOPLE - Literally - Clean Renewables NOW - not in some far off distant non existing future.
Hilary Lambert says
Thanks Bill for calling attention to these disturbing and disgusting partisan political developments. I do agree with Cris McC to some extent — that is, there are gas shills on BOTH sides of the aisle in NY State, as there are also strong anti gas folks on both sides.
At the town and county level, many Republicans act the way they do west of the Mississippi - namely they support Home Rule, disclosure of frack fluids (Texas and Wyoming) better setbacks for gas wells ( all states are better than NYS)
So yes, for purposes of advancing local land and road use ordinances, there are a lot of helpful Republicans. It’s the shills in Albany - the ones that have blocked fracking legislation in committee - that need to be turned out on election day.
Teresa Winchester says
I’m glad to see that Cowboy Chip is back in the saddle and riding roughshod over those who would despoil our waters and land through the pernicious technology of hydrofracking. I strongly believe that all of the dispersed grassroots groups should unify and plan a concerted strategy to demand that Gov. Cuomo and/or state legislature invoke a STATEWIDE BAN! One of the key parts of this strategy should be to identify candidates to oust gas industry shills currently in office — or any assemblymann or state senator who does not support a BAN! tw
Bonnie Reynolds says
I agree, while out petitioning I have found that THE PEOPLE are not for or against according to party affiliation. The people get it, they understand after only a brief explanation, that hydrofracking is bad news. We must keep educating the people and get those people to contact their legislators, and, yes, get rid of the legislators who have been so handsomely paid by the industry that they have forgotten what happens on election day.
This is my personal opinion based on MANY years of living in the gas patch. You NYers are pretty new to this but we truly appreciate what you are doing.
I suggest you carefully check the voting records and campaign contributions of all in office or seeking office. It sounds nice to say this is not a political issue but it’s naive. It absolutely is a political issue and the proof of that is in the voting records and contributions.
While I do not agree with Obama’s recent support of natural gas, I realize he is our only hope right now. (Do you really think things will be improved with Mitt of Santorum? Really?) And, I am highly invested in keeping the EPA we currently have. Maybe people have forgotten what the Bush EPA was like.
What I have found is that THE PEOPLE do “get it,” but that does not translate to their voting habits. Unfortunately, they continue to vote against their best interest. It takes a tremendous effort to change voting patterns.
Krys Cail says
It isn’t so much that fracking is a partisan issue (certainly not on the local level at all). It is that the NYS legislature has a very unpleasant system whereby most issues are deliberated and discussed, and a position arrived at, in closed-door party caucus. Then, either the issue is kept from coming to the floor for a vote or a compromise is worked out by the leadership meeting with the other 2 leaders (“3 men in a room” government). Then, everybody in the legislature tends to vote as a block for whatever is worked out.
The situation right now is that the Republican Senate leadership is blocking having any frack-related bills come to the floor for a vote. So, yes, the way to change this is to EITHER change the leadership by changing the Senate to a Democratic majority, OR to change the leadership by making it (Republican Senate leaders) change their minds about fracking. The approach is the same regardless: focus on Tom Libous, who is a leader in the party and is relentlessly pushing his peers in the Republican Caucus to frack. Vulnerable to losing his seat and/or his leadership role based on the corruption scandal. Interestingly, one of the most likely roads to Republican leadership mind-changing runs through Long Island (which is the locus of Republican Senate power, even though there are more Republican Senators upstate). The DEC has handed us a real help there, in identifying a Long Island wastewater treatment plant as a place to ‘treat’ frack waste (and then dilute it in the Atlantic Ocean, so they can claim ‘safe levels’ of toxins). See into on this here: http://portwashington.patch.com/articles/that-dog-don-t-hunt
@Krys Cail Agreed! The only way we have made any progress in Texas is to vote the pro frackers out of office (not an easy task in my state). That message reverberates.
jdn says
Thanks for pointing the deets out. I agree that fracking shouldn’t be a partisan issue, so let’s get rid of the legislators who are making it into one!
Best of luck…
john martin says
For various reasons, I’m rarely permitted out in public.
Nevertheless, on Saturday night, I found myself at a rather nice dinner party (I wore a jacket) where a highly-placed Hunt Oil executive was extolling the virtues of fracking and the many benefits the process brought these United States.
When I asked about earthquakes in Youngstown, Ohio, (see why I’m rarely allowed out?) he indicated that involved disposal wells where the “salt water produced in fracking operations” went to live for all eternity. Fracking, he maintained, was benign, involving the injection of “salt water” into gas/petroleum-bearing strata — etc. etc.
When I think of “salt water”, I think of a lovely day at the beach, not the secret santorum the bought-n-paid-for politicians allow to be injected into our water supply for cash. Like so many other things corruption brings, Miss Information is a real head-turner. It would appear it’s a race between Big Oil and Montsanto (Roundup) to see who can deliver the most harm in the shortest time through our water supply.
American Exceptionalism, FoeShure.
To borrow a line dripping in irony, we have it in our power to “Just Say No”. But unlike Nancy R, we can bring ourselves to say “Hell No” if we work real hard at it.
Looking in the mirror, say (firmly) “I CAN vote these SOBs out of office —” over and over. Then find some nice red shoes and scuff ’em against each other a couple of times or until it’s time for a latte vente. First things first.
Richard Averett says
We are concentrating on this issue locally (like others across America’s gaslands), but in reality, it is part of a much bigger problem facing every American that concerns corporate influence in the political process.
State legislators, like Libous, may be getting their “marching orders” from Industry itself via A.L.E.C. - The American Legislative Exchange Council [see: http://www.pfaw.org/rww-in-focus/alec-the-voice-of-corporate-special-interests-state-legislatures%5D, where corporations pay large sums of money in order to influence legislation at the state level (and probably Federal as well).
The recent move to pass Voter ID Laws in several states (to restrict potential Democrats from voting), or the attack on the CSEA workers in Wisconsin last year are examples of the kind of work this group does at the state level. I have no doubt that the same is going on with respect to maintaining America’s dependence (addiction) to fossil fuels, whether it is the XL Keystone pipeline project or fracking for gas in NY.
So, if Libous is a legislative member of ALEC (or if any other state legislators are…at an annual cost of $100), then it is more than likely that the push for fracking in NY (and everywhere else) is an example of what the petroleum industry does with their profits when they have the undivided attention and cooperation of OUR state legislators.