Posted on 12/18/2014 6:59:57 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Thanks to an announcement from the state Department of Health today, New Yorkers will miss out on a multi-billion-dollar industry that has made other states rich.
The decision, a ban on fracking, has little to do with sound science and much more to do with the political cowardice of New Yorks leaders, the politicization of state agencies, and the political activism of radical environmentalists.
The story begins about six years ago, when Governor David Paterson decided to refer a politically controversial decision about fracking to state agencies, ordering a study while instituting a de facto fracking ban. His successor, Governor Andrew Cuomo, also washed his hands of the hard call; at todays news conference, Cuomo said his commissioners had made the decision, adding, I dont think I even have a role here.
The Department of Health justified its decision to ban fracking with a long-anticipated report on the practices public-health effects, but theres reason to question the objectivity of this study.
In fact, the first draft of the environmental-conservation report inconveniently concluded that New York should allow fracking to proceed so Governor Paterson demanded a do-over. Under intense environmental lobbying, and after years of delay, the new report offers a more palatable conclusion for a Democratic governor: that the risk to public health is just too great to allow fracking in New York.
Even so, the report hardly impresses.
For instance:
As with most complex human activities in modern societies, absolute scientific certainty regarding the relative contributions of positive and negative impacts of [fracking] on public health is unlikely to ever be attained.
Or:
There are significant uncertainties about the kinds of adverse health outcomes that may be associated with [fracking], the likelihood of the occurrence of adverse health outcomes, and the effectiveness of some of the mitigation measures in reducing or preventing environmental impacts which could aversely effect public health.
Or:
It is apparent that the science surrounding [fracking] activity is limited, only just beginning to emerge, and largely suggests only hypotheses about potential public health impacts that need further evaluation.
While hedging isnt uncommon to such studies, it makes clear that the decision to ban fracking a decision that has demonstrable and significant economic repercussions for the state of New York is based on unauthoritative, inconclusive, non-definitive, and absent science.
The purported health risks the Department of Health does note are also rather thin. For starters, the study seems to assume that prosperity, in and of itself, poses a public-health risk.
It warns of community impacts associated with boom-town economic effects such as increased vehicle traffic, road damage, noise, odor complaints, increased demand for housing and medical care, and stress. Later, it cautions about disproportionate increases in social problems, particularly in small isolated rural communities where local governments tend to be unprepared for rapid changes.
Is any industry that comes to small towns, revitalizes waning economies, and creates growth a health hazard? Its not about to happen, but imagine if the wind-power industry saw growth on a similar scale. Would the New York Department of Health be worried enough about boom-town economic effects and noise complaints to justify a turbine ban?
The study also makes much of how mishaps not the practice itself might affect public health. For example, it frets about water and soil contamination from faulty well construction and surface spills and inadequate wastewater treatment.
Sure, accidents are possible. But the energy extraction is already subject to extensive regulation, and the threat of lawsuits resulting from negligence or error provide ample incentive for companies to act with care, as they do in any other industry. Meanwhile, fracking technology has made leaps of progress as the energy sector has boomed, and the process is steadily becoming safer.
The study also cautions of climate change impacts due to methane and other volatile organic chemical releases to the atmosphere. But earlier this year, the most comprehensive study of its kind found the EPA had grossly overestimated the amount of methane leaked at fracking sites, also concluding that new technology resulted in 99 percent of the potential [methane] emissions [being] captured or controlled.
The Department of Health fails to duly consider frackings positive effects on climate change. Fracking produces natural gas, which is vastly less carbon-intensive than the fuel it typically replaces, coal. More natural-gas production and lower prices have brought U.S. carbon emissions to their lowest levels in 20 years, a link that even the federal governments Energy Information Administration acknowledges.
For New York, the use of natural gas has already yielded environmental results. More than half of all homes in the state rely on natural gas for heat, making it the states largest energy source. Even New York Citys far-left mayor, Bill de Blasio, has noted that since 2005, New Yorkers have reduced their greenhouse gas emissions by 19 percent, largely through a transition to natural gas for electricity generation.
Even some of the more worrisome-sounding issues raised by the Department of Health look less authoritative upon deeper examination. For instance, the report cites a peer-reviewed study and one university report [that] have presented data indicating statistical associations between some birth outcomes (low birth weight and some congenital defects) and residential proximity of the mother to well pads during pregnancy.
Sounds scary but the study that these findings derive from air pollution or stress from localized economic activity, not groundwater contamination from fracking. Meanwhile, other report referenced, conducted by the University of Colorado, even elicited criticism from the states chief medical officer, who cautioned that many factors known to contribute to birth defects were ignored in this study.
The Department of Healths conclusion is based more on overwrought alarmism than it is careful consideration, and its New Yorkers in need of economic opportunity who are going to bear the costs.
Jillian Kay Melchior writes for National Review as a Thomas L. Rhodes Fellow for the Franklin Center. She is also a senior fellow at the Independent Womens Forum.
As a Texan, I would happily sell Texas energy to New York at a premium. Just call it “organic” or “free-range” energy so the libs will feel good while consuming it.
Simply put, New Yorkers elected and reelected the vile abortion loving Cuomo. They deserve to suffer.
Let them freeze in the dark. A prime example of how ideology turns people into absolute fools.
Now that right there is funny, I don’t care who you are!!!
“Yessireee ladies and gentlemen, what we got right here is FREE RANGE awl, diiiiirect from the great state of Texas. It’ll run your car, heat your house, make electricity for your basement, make plastic for you and your little ladies’ favorite toys, run the foundry at work, pave your roads and a thousands of other uses.” “Cuomoo surcharges apply to New Yawkers.”
He could care less about regular New Yorkers.
RE: He’s thinking beyond NY...and wants to support the EPA and the big money it holds.
Do I see 2016 in his future? Yes, I think I do....
My post at No. 8 is another reason why I think Schumer is retiring when his term is up.
I am starting to think Cuomo is serious about running for president or at least getting on the ticket as VP. The only reason he would do this in my opinion is he wants to be able to appeal to the environmental left nationally and is willing to throw his states financial interests under the bus for his national ambition. He knows fracking is not the boogey man the left makes it out to be...
Like Obama, Cuomo has a Laser Like Focus on Killing Jobs.
Made of nothing but free range dinosaur guts!
Naturally, poverty and joblessness don’t produce any negative health effects- according to the state health department.
Easy now, We have one city which holds the rest of the state hostage. On a Monday this week I went to see my mother on the NY/PA border. Restaurant was full of brand new pickups with PA plates. That’s all fracking money. Add in the SAFE ACT and Andrew is not popular upstate.
They do produce dependence, and that’s what they’re after.
Affordable energy = individual liberty
jobs producing affordable energy = individual liberty
You can understand why they’d oppose this.
But typical liberals that love to take action that does nothing. If NY was serious, they would ban the sale of fracked energy in the state. However, this would increase the cost to the average New Yorker which would mean liberals would be accountable for stupid policy.
We have seen this before with libs- we have all these "sanctuary cities" but none of them volunteer to house and feed all the immigrant children that showed up earlier this year.
Or, just let them use their solar system on cloudy, sub zero days and retain Texas energy in Texas!
There’s also wind! And, they can cut wood!
More New Yawkers coming to Texas is all this means!
NO, no, my FRiend. We're selling PA, Marcellus Shale gas to NY and the rest of New England!!
I'LL TAKE SOME!!!!!.......wait a minute, I live in Indiana and we have plenty.....sorry!
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