New York missed a Feb. 13 procedural deadline, so it will be unable to issue regulations for high-volume fracking by the end of this month. As a practical matter, this means the Department of Environmental Conservation will have to scrap the work it's done and restart the process.
There will have to be another round of public hearings, and another opportunity for citizens to submit hundreds of thousands of comments to the DEC — comments that the department will once again be legally bound to read and consider before finalizing regulations.
We're told that the DEC failed to meet its deadline because the state's Department of Health was unable to wrap up a review of the health impacts of fracking in a timely way. That, we are told, will take several more weeks.
The failure of DOH to complete its review can be directly traced to the reluctance of the Cuomo administration to address the public health implications of fracking in the first place. It was only after more than a year of intense pressure that the governor finally ordered an internal DOH "review" that was then belatedly supplemented by input from three outside experts.
One expert was paid for a maximum of 24 hours work, another for a maximum of 50 hours, so we can be sure that the final DOH review will fall far short of the independent health impact assessment the medical community has been seeking.
Foot-dragging on the part of the governor causes the DEC to miss a deadline. New York taxpayers will foot the bill for a second attempt to promulgate regulations. There still won't be an independent public health analysis. After almost five years, New York still hasn't developed a policy on high volume fracking.
To me, this reads like a record of incompetence. So why is Gov. Andrew Cuomo now being thanked by erstwhile critics for presiding over this messy state of affairs?
And why, all of a sudden, is he being hailed for "letting science decide" the fate of fracking in New York?
There is little evidence that science, not politics, is driving decision-making in Albany. New York won't get a health impact assessment, the DEC hasn't said it will wait for the results of the EPA study of fracking and drinking water safety, and the department still hasn't indicated that it's paying attention to the impact that shale gas extraction will have on climate change.
Peer reviewed scientific studies by Robert Howarth and others demonstrate that shale gas produces more harmful greenhouse gases than so-called "dirty" coal, but this important research has been ignored by the DEC — a fact that should surprise no one given that the department's Division of Mineral Resources is run by an avowed climate change denier.
The accolades for Cuomo are even more puzzling in light of remarks by his DEC commissioner that New York might go ahead and permit fracking without any regulations in place. This is an outrageous suggestion, but where is the outrage?
Are these remarks being given a pass by those who oppose fracking because they have been quietly assured this isn't a real possibility, just a sop to placate those who support fracking?
If that's the case, where is the outrage at this duplicitous behavior?
The fact is, the governor already has more than enough information in hand to determine that fracking is a losing proposition for New York. When he finds the political courage to articulate a clear, responsible policy, then, and only then, will he have earned my thanks.
Bruce Ferguson is a member of Catskill Citizens for Safe Energy.