I recently wrote this letter to Governor Cuomo, as New York sits waiting to hear when natural gas development using high volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing will be allowed within our borders.

Governor Cuomo,

I am the chairman of the Steuben County Land Owners Coalition PAC, and chairman of the executive committee.  Our membership represents a little over 202,000 acres and about 1700 families.  To some degree at least, I like to think that I can speak for our membership.

Governor Cuomo – you are killing us!!

Quite some time ago you said (paraphrasing): ‘this issue will be decided based on science and reason, not politics and fear ( or was it emotion?).  I have to assume that you did not really mean that.  All the valid science, all “reason”, all the history on gas drilling, all the economic and fiscal benefits and results, all are in favor of gas drilling.  The only “valid” opposition to drilling is purely political or emotional.  Since I am assuming you are above the emotional factor, I have to assume your continued stalling on a decision on this is purely political.  As an avid student of politics and history I probably understand that more than most of your critics – right or left.

However, as a “realist” I have a hard time understanding how you can let the political element outweigh all the evidence on the favorable side of this issue.  If your political advisers are not keeping you informed of what is really happening in Pa., Ohio, the Dakotas, or any of the 16 other states that are taking advantage of their shale plays, I would make one simple suggestion – FIRE THEM ALL !

If your advisers are telling you that N.Y. couldn’t use, or doesn’t need, the economic activity or the jobs (238,000 thru 2011 in Pa. alone according to their Department of Labor and Industry) I would recommend you transfer them all to California.  Although I did find it interesting that even Governor Moon Beam fired his environmental guy for being too hard on the gas and oil industry!

If you have ambitions beyond N.Y., and if you don’t, you should, it’s hard to comprehend how you can watch what is happening in all the other states over a shale play and not let New York experience the same advantages.  Soon you will be known nationally as the Governor who sat idle and let his state sink further and further into its fiscal abyss.  “I sat idle” would probably not make a good bumper sticker for a national campaign,  You could try “I brought yogurt and 300 jobs to my state.”

New York has already wasted four years of economic advancement, in reality for no good reason at all.  We had the best regulations before SGEIS.  We certainly could have opened up to drilling and made adjustments to problems as they occurred – like the other 16 states have done.  The only difference would have been fewer problems to begin with because of our better regulations that already existed in 2008.  It’s actually painful to think about where all of us might be today if we had just done what all the other states did.

So, please, for our sake, for the well-being of the state in general, and especially for your own future reputation, don’t drag the decision out any further.  Those cute little old ladies carrying signs with a red circle with a line through it, imposed on a picture of you, are not really going to leave you and become good little Republicans.  Your liberal credentials are strong enough to survive this decision, and once the benefits begin to accrue for N.Y., your reputation will be strongly enhanced with the vast majority of citizens.

Sincerely,
Jeff Heller

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Source: City Journal

Source: City Journal