They are debating it now, and Speaker Sheldon Silver and Environmental Conservation Committee Chairman Bob Sweeney just held a news conference tying hydraulic fracturing to all sorts of issues, from the BP oil spill and the Japanese nuclear plant meltdown (Silver) to earthquakes and cancer (Sweeney). Behind the podium at the news conference were about 22 people, members and environmentalists. Unusually for an Assembly event, everyone was white.
Why not just wait for the DEC report? Because, Silver and Sweeney said, the Assembly wants a chance to review and respond to it, and it will probably come out later this year when the Legislature will not be in session. The moratorium would apply to this method of natural gas extraction until next June 1. The gas, Silver pointed out, "isn't going anywhere. We're not going to lose it." He said he has not discussed it with the governor, and Sweeney said he has not pressed the DEC commissioner on the issue because of the department's ongoing review.
Not exactly a huge non-white or Democratic population in the southern Tier.
Posted by: Brian | June 10, 2011 at 12:29 PM