New York Politicians Vote for the Club Over the Constituency and Ban CO2 Fracking

Well, Kathy Hochul just proved she is every bit as captive to the Rockefeller family and its NRDC gang as Andrew Cuomo. She signed a ban on CO2 fracking, the one hope the Southern Tier of New York had for some economic revival using the natural gas resources beneath its feet. Here’s the word from the biased WSKG, a public radio station we all help subsidize to spread government propaganda (emphasis added):

Governor Kathy Hochul signed a bill Saturday that expands New York’s fracking ban to prohibit the use of carbon dioxide to extract oil and gas from rock.

This adds to New York’s decade-old ban on hydraulic fracking, which uses water.

Assemblymember Anna Kelles, who represents Tompkins County and sponsored the legislation, said she introduced the bill after a Texas-based company proposed using carbon dioxide to extract oil from shale rock in the Southern Tier.

“It closes an important loophole and continues to protect the state against very intense polluting,” said Kelles. “Polluting of water, polluting of air — those things continue to exist in this type of fracking.”

Extracting oil and gas from rock with carbon dioxide requires injecting high-pressure carbon dioxide into the ground. That technique has been found to be associated with an elevated risk of earthquakes and groundwater pollution. Researchers have found that traditional fracking, using water, is also associated with numerous health and environmental concerns.

Anti-fracking advocates have welcomed the expanded legislation as a protection against fracking in New York.

“It’s common sense that New York State should not be a testing ground for drilling and fracking using carbon dioxide,” said Richard Schrader, director of New York government affairs at the Natural Resources Defense Council, in a statement. “New York must devote its resources to clean, renewable energy.”

Hochul’s decision to expand the fracking ban has set New York apart from several other states where the practice remains widespread, like Pennsylvania and Texas.

Some landowners in New York have been frustrated by the state’s continued ban on fracking, which they say could present an opportunity for economic growth in the state’s Southern Tier.

Walter Hang, president of the Ithaca-based environmental organization Toxics Targeting, said he is concerned that the bill leaves other loopholes that could allow fracking to continue. He said other substances, like gelled propane, could still be used for fracking and called the legislation “woefully inadequate” in a statement.

In response, Kelles said the new legislation demonstrates that the government has been able to quickly address attempts to bypass New York’s fracking ban by proposing and passing new legislation.

“This law as it was written will create the environmental protections right now that we need," said Kelles.

The bill was, as noted, was sponsored by Assemblymember Anna Kelles who represents Tompkins County, what we refer to as “Planet Ithaca” where the majority lives in an alternative universe, one where up is down and the club is far more important than the constituency to quote Chesterton (as I often do). The club in this case is the Rockefeller set, composed of family members, a multitude of NGOs controlled or enabled by its money, and its hired guns.

One of those is Walter Hang, an individual I happen to like personally, but readily and somewhat proudly admits he works for the Rockefeller family. No independent voice is he. I wrote about him seven years ago here and noted the following:

The man has, over the past few years, been paid over $2,225,000 by the Rockefeller family and the Park Foundation to help spread misinformation on oil and gas development in New York. The 990 returns of their Sustainable Markets Foundation show he’s essentially been on their payroll as a hired gun.

Let me point out, too, that the fellow who runs the Sustainable Markets Foundation, Jay Halfon, is also on the Park Foundation board, and both it and the Rockefeller NGOs fund the NRDC. And, the Park Foundation currently funds WSKG, as well!

So, that’s the club and everything you read in the WSKG story is across carefully constructed narrative to support the action of Kathy Hochul, who was undoubtedly told she needed to do this, by the very same people. It’s a corrupt club. The following picture used by WSKG from Food & Water Watch (also funded by the Park Foundation and which has funded certain motormouths from Dimock who continue wandering the world spreading the fractivist gospel) tells us everything, in fact:

There is maybe a dozen fractivists most of whom were dressed in uniform and looking like they just ate a toad. The big sign is held by a Catskill Mountainkeeper employee. I like him personally, as well, but the Mountainkeeper organization is just a NRDC spinoff I wrote about here and here in the New York Post. Moreover, he showed up a town meeting Upstate that I was at not so long ago to oppose a solar project that apparently offended some supporters. So much for consistency. The speaker is State Senator Lea Webb, who sponsored a bill giving WSKG another $375,000 from state funds.

It’s impossible not to notice the club if you’ve watched this game long enough. And, the constituency? Well, Senator represents Binghamton, New York, about which Perplexity offers these tidbits:

• The area has lost 70% of its manufacturing base since 1990, one of the largest declines for any metropolitan area in the nation.

• The Binghamton metro area saw a 1.9% population decrease over a 10-year period ending in 2023, while the U.S. overall grew by 5.5%.

• In 2022, Binghamton's median household income was $58,000, significantly below the national median of $71,700.

• Some 29.3% of Binghamton's population aged 25 and older have a bachelor's degree or higher, compared to 35.7% nationally.

• The area has experienced volatility in unemployment rates, reaching as high as 17.2% in April 2020 during the pandemic.

Binghamton and the Southern Tier need fracking, but Senator Webb is focused on catering to the club. That’s New York’s problem in a nutshell. Eventually, though, New York will be forced to frack. It cannot meet its energy needs without doing so, if it hopes to remain a modern state. Nuclear could help meet those needs in the long-term, but it cannot come quick enough to close the gap and Cuomo took things a giant step backward by closing Indian Point. Even the club will come to demand it when its own interests are threatened and that’s on the horizon. Just must my thoughts

#NewYork #Hochul #CO2 #Fracking

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