Feb 11
2013
Seven organizations, including Public Citizen, ask the district attorney in Albany to investigate whether the stock holdings of Lawrence Schwartz, a key Cuomo insider, represent a conflict of interest. The groups said Schwartz owns stock in companies that would benefit financially should Cuomo approve hydrofracking.
Feb 11
2013
The practice of hydraulic fracturing for natural gas may not take place here in Western New York, but is the waste from it potentially headed this way? A report by the Niagara Gazette.
Feb 8
2013
Buffalo Sabres owner Terry Pegula, who made his fortune hydrofracking, has used his status as a sports mogul at least once to lobby state lawmakers to embrace drilling for natural gas. Jon Campbell of the Gannett News Service’s capital bureau in Albany is reporting that Pegula invited lawmakers to his hockey arena 15 months ago and pitched them on the merits of hydrofracking. In late November 2011, nine months after he took control of the National Hockey League club, Pegula gathered Buffalo-area officials and state lawmakers in a boardroom at then-HSBC Arena. There, he and members of his East Resources team[...]
Feb 8
2013
The three experts the state picked to review health impacts of hydrofracking say they finished over a month ago. But the Department of Environmental Conservation and the state Health Department didn’t reveal this in front of lawmakers last week. DEC faces a Feb. 27 deadline to finish regulations or they expire. A report from Albany’s Gannett bureau.
Feb 5
2013
Monday morning’s joint state legislative meeting on the environmental conservation budget turned into a question and answer session with state Department of Conservation Commissioner Joe Martens on hydrofracking. The Albany Times-Union has a good report of the meeting. One topic that caught my attention was during Assemblywoman Barbara Lifton’s peppering of Martens on the controversial natural gas drilling process. The Ithaca Democrat said 400 families in Washington County, Pa., have had water delivered to them because of contamination. She wasn’t happy about Pennsylvania’s Act 13, either. She called it “corruption,” and asked Martens what he thought about Act 13, specifically the[...]
Feb 4
2013
As state health department finishes its review of hydrofracking impacts, state residents still not sure if the controversial drilling should be allowed here, Capital Tonight reports. Jobs vs. environmental impacts creates the divide.
Jan 8
2013
James Northrup used to be an oil investor in Texas before he moved to Cooperstown and became an activist against hydrofracking. Ecowatch produced this interview with Northrup, in which he talks about some of the environmental dangers of drilling for natural gas.
Jan 3
2013
A year-old state report leaked to the New York Times and Gannett’s Albany bureau says that hydraulic gas drilling can be done safely if the state Department of Environmental Conservation stays on top of the regulations. Never has there been an environmental issue in New York that has garnered so much emotion and attention than hydrofracking. A record-breaking 80,000 comments were sent to the DEC when it released its first review of the controversial process of extracting natural gas deep underground with sand, massive amounts of water and chemicals. Gov. Andrew Cuomo has long delayed a decision on hydrofracking in the state,[...]