Governor Cuomo leads Ed Cox by a hole frack load

So what’s this Cox Sock Puppet to do ? Dick Nixon’s Number One Son-in-Law is mulling a gubernatorial run, Hamlet style, with his campaign platform being “Elect Me Frackmeister in Chief and I Will Frack the Daylights out of Upstate” While this ploy may resonate with Cox’s fracking benefactors, it strikes me as a rather superficial approach to economic development - particularly when there’s not a mouse fart worth of shale gas in New York to begin with - any decade soon. Dick’s son-in-law Cox touts all the local jobs that those iffy wells are supposed to create. So who is Dick Nixon’s Cox appealing to ? Could it be Noble Energy - who pay this Nixonian leftover to sit on their board ? The Wall Street EZ money boys who would bankroll such a Cox quixotic bid for the Big House in Albany ?

Cox wouldn’t win anything but a few zip codes in the Hamptons - but he could serve as a useful fracking sock puppet - a role that he has already warmed to at Nixon Family Values fund raisers. He would have a bully pulpit to be a fracking bully and guilt-trip the Governor over his cautious approach to fracking. All he has to do is beat Rob Gastorino for the nomination. Tough assignment.

Cox Campaign Bus

Nixon’s son-in-law proves the maxim: the wormy apple-in-law does not fall far from the rotten apple tree. He even whines like his father-in-law, Tricky Dick - when “attacked by fractavist surrogates” = “outside agitators” What a weenie this Cox is. What a fracking dick.

Cox to Cuomo on Fracking:

Don’t Sic Your Fracking Flunkies on Me Mister

Posted on November 15, 2013 at 1:51 pm by Casey Seiler, Capitol bureau chief in Ed Cox, Hydrofracking

$"I am not a frack !"$

“I am not a frack !”

State Republican Chair Ed Cox (pronounced ‘cocks‘) has issued an open letter to Gov. Andrew Cuomo responding to the governor’s recent reiteration of his expectation to make a decision on hydrofracking before next year’s election. Cuomo madesimilar comments in the spring — but at that time also suggested that the Department of Health’s work on the subject was only weeks away. Psych!

Cox also uses the letter to defend himself from “a barrage of ad hominem attacks (made) through your political surrogates” — meaning environmental activists and state Democratic figures — that followed the chairman’s addressto the state Independent Oil & Gas Association, the leading pro-fracking trade group. Cox was assailed for his family’s considerable investments in Noble Energy, which has natural gas interests in other states — but, he notes, not in New York.

Here’s the letter:

“Dear Governor Cuomo:

Yesterday, you stated that you intend to make a decision on New York’s moratorium on hydraulic fracturing before Election Day.

This is a decision you should have made on Day One of your administration. It’s a decision you should make today. Further delay is intolerable.

When I made this point in a recent speech to the Independent Oil and Gas Association, you responded with a barrage of ad hominem attacks through your political surrogates, many of which mention my affiliation with Noble Energy.

Cox evidently did not get the Noble Energy memo: “Don’t bother to frack New York, the play peters out just north of the borderline.” The major oil and gas companies took a hard look at New York and most of them left. Before the de facto moratorium. Everybody in the rig business - especially Noble - knows that. Cox pretends otherwise - since he needs some wedge issue on Cuomo.

Noble Energy was one of the first independent oil and gas producers to establish an Environmental Health and Safety Committee, which I have chaired for many years.

In 2011, Noble Energy received the Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Commission’s Outstanding Operator Award for environmental protection. In both 2008 and 2009, we received the federal government’s prestigious Mineral Management Service SAFE Award for our operations in the Gulf of Mexico.

I have also served as a Director and Chairman of the New York League of Conservation Voters Education Fund for many years.

After your 2006 election as Attorney General, you appointed me to lead your Environmental Transition Team.

I was honored to receive that appointment and pleased that you accepted all of our recommendations. Today, I am just as disappointed with the manner in which you have responded to my speech.

This isn’t about cheap political hits. This is about jobs for a struggling region of New York State. And you do a disservice to your constituents by playing politics with jobs.

Of the over thirty states with the potential to develop shale gas, just one maintains a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing: New York.

Governor Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania, a Democrat, had the wisdom to promptly implement a robust regulatory framework for hydraulic fracturing. As a result, Pennsylvania has a dynamic and growing industry generating annual revenues of $15 billion and creating nearly a quarter of a million new jobs.

Many in the environmental community, including the Environmental Defense Fund, have publicly stated that natural gas can be safely developed to the benefit of both our economy and our environment, producing less CO2 emissions and other pollutants than coal and oil.

That’s why leader of your party, President Barack Obama, supports the development of America’s natural gas resources.

Simply put, you cannot say that New York is “open for business” while closing New York to this business.”

Even more simply put is that Ed Cox is premising his campaign on the myth that there actually is much shale gas potential in New York. His big wedge issue is a fracking fairy tale. You heard it here last.

Come to the Shale Gas Myth Busters show in New York City on January 16th at Ethical Culture or Oneonta on the 17th at Foothills and find out first hand just how much of the New York shale was just so much hot air.