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After the shutdown of the UB Shale Institute and recent releases of films like Josh Fox’s The Sky is Pink and New Yorkers against Fracking documentary Dear Governor Cuomo, it seemed as if progress was being made.
Then on November 28th, the Department of Environmental Conservation issued proposed regulations for fracking in the state of New York. A shock to those in the Anti-Fracking movement after the Governor clearly stated that a environmental analysis called the SGEIS would serve as the basis for these regulations.
Even if completed, the health study only comprised of a total of three days of outside contractors’ time to catalog all of the possible health impacts of this dangerous practice. It would not have produced sufficient information for the state to evaluate the health effects of fracking.
In a unconscionably irresponsible move, Cuomo made the completely inadequate health study irrelevant by giving New Yorkers only 30 days to demonstrate that fracking is too dangerous to be regulated. Now with only two weeks left to go to submit comments, New Yorkers across the state are doing everything they can to ban fracking.
New Yorkers Against Fracking, a coalition of groups dedicated to a statewide ban on fracking, is now frantically organizing to flood the DEC with hundreds of thousands of comments. Last year the New Yorkers forced a reevaluation of the original SGEIS with a record 60,000 comments. This round, Fractivists across the state are challenged with getting as many comments in as humanly possible. Internationally acclaimed biologist and Sandra Steingraber started the website 30 Days of Fracking Regs to help facilitate those who need more info to send to the DEC. Identifying one issue for every day available, she has taken an advent calendar approach to the effort to ban fracking in New York State.
The roup recently released the film Dear Governor Cuomo which beautifully illustrates the unflappable force behind New Yorkers Against Fracking, the coalition of dozens of groups dedicated to a Ban on Fracking. Now there are only 11 days left to submit comments. There is no question that the statewide Anti-Fracking movement has the power to pump thousands of comments into the fractured DEC all proving without a shadow of a doubt that this practices is irrefutably unsafe. The question is base on the blatantly disingenuous and undemocratic process that has taken place over the past few weeks. Does it matter?
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9 Comments
As a resident of NY State, and only a county away from the shale area, I am not counting on Cuomo to do what the people want.
He is starting to turn out to be a mini-Obama; for instance when Democrats won enough seats to take over the State Senate (despite gerrymandering the districts), Cuomo stood by (and possibly even encouraged) 5 Democrats to vote for a Republican Senate Leader.
This helps Cuomo as it might be inconvenient if bills reflecting the will of the voters were actually to reach his desk. Better by far to maintain the dysfunctional status quo, so he has someone else to blame for not getting the will of the voters done.
The pen IS mightier than the sword. Get busy commenters!
Thanks for this info. Another misleader Democrat.
I thought matt damon and john krasinsky solved fracking with their feel good movie of the year
Have the good citizens of NY, who want no fracking in their state, delivered any electoral threats to Cuomo and the rest of the state government?
Actually, let me rephrase that:
Have the good citizens of NY, who want no fracking in their state, delivered any credible electoral threats to Cuomo and the rest of the state government?
(If you do the math, intervening in primaries is the easiest way to toss out an incumbent. So, a credible threat should certainly encompass the easiest strategic pathway.)
If the answer is “no”, fracking coming to NY is that much more likely. Which then raises the question, “Whose fault is that?” Ultimately, it’s the citizens of NY State’s collective fault. Cuomo and his henchmen are not going to tell you how you can twist their arms, correct? No sane person can expect most D’s and R’s to do what’s best for their consituents, when there are big $$ urging them not to. No sane person can expect the D’s and R’s to tell their constituents how to prevent them from betraying those constituents.
Therefore, the citizens of NY State should have figured out, using their own intellects, how to twist the arms of their ‘representatives’ and executed their plan. And while experts can be wrong, I have to wonder why the citizens of NY State would not try to obtains some expert evaluation of whatever arm-twisting strategy they came up with (which they probably didn’t…), e.g. like a political game theorist who evaluates political strategies for a living.
Surely, Cuomo is executing his plan. Why should the citizens of NY have been any less shrewd? What excuse can they possibly offer, for not being as shrewd, as possible?
Whether we like it or not, and whether we wouldn’t even have to think this way if our governments were not so corrupted, or not, if the citizens of NY State (or any other state) are so collectively dumb (in a strategic sense) that they can’t torpedo betrayals of the common good that are roundly rejected, they will be at fault, collectively, for what befalls them.
When a species comes to an evolutionary dead end, we don’t say that that species is at fault. Knowing that animals are dumb, we blame it on circumstances, the environment, and competition with other species.
The citizens of NY State have brains, that can project scenarios into the future. The citizens of NY State have brains, that can make reasonable models of behavior of other humans – including those who are politicians. The citizens of NY State have brains, that can recognize the fact that not all strategies are equal. Nor are all individuals equal in their capability to design and/or evaluate strategies.
The citizens of NY have brains and a level of intelligence far exceeding that of non-human animals. Even so, I don’t see where they’re using their potential intelligence. I have a feeling that this will play out the same way the anti-GMO ballot initiative in CA played out.
Perhaps it’s not an intelligence problem. Perhaps there are not enough good citizens of NY, who want no fracking in their state, to do much about it.
Now, that would be a problem! However, not as big a problem as those who do care, not using their noodles. Unless that number is so small, that they can’t deliver a credible electoral threat, even if they were as smart as Einstein.
Registered Democrats who vote also in primaries is on the order of 20%. I personally can’t recall anybody I’ve known, personally, tell me that they voted in a primary. I queried a few of my family members, one time, and nobody had ever voted in any primary.
When you consider that, typically, only 1/3 the electorate considers itself Democratic, what does that tell you about the threshold you need to dump an incumbent Democrat? (I’m assuming they’re willing to register as a Democrat.)
John Washington, great to see you again at MyFDL.
Will get on the comments.
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Who lives in the area that Cuomo would allow to be Fracked? That is: Who is he trying to kill? or: Against which group is Cuomo trying to carry out Genocide?