Andrew Cuomo has banned hydraulic fracturing in New York, but that doesn’t mean the battle is over.
On Monday night, a big crowd in Binghamton braved sub-freezing temperatures to attend a pro-natural gas rally at a local Holiday Inn blasting the governor.
“He made a purely political decision,” said Dan Fitzsimmons, executive director of the Joint Land Owners Coalition of New York and one of the organizers of the event. “(Cuomo) wants to be a candidate for [the] presidency.”
Fitzsimmons said his group plans to fight Cuomo through a variety of means, including legislative and legal action.
“We’re going to try to get some federal intervention,” Fitzsimmons said in a telephone interview.
As for filing a lawsuit, Fitzsimmons said, “We have nothing in writing to look at.”
Cuomo has issued what amounts to a prohibition on “high-volume” hydraulic fracturing in the Empire State, but he has not issued a formal explanation dealing with the specifics of the ban.
“It could amount to an extended moratorium,” Fitzsimmons said. “Before we go through the legal route, we have to see what the wording (of the ban) is.”
“There are going to be a ton of lawsuits, I’m sure, every which way from Sunday now,” Cuomo said during a cabinet meeting Dec. 17 when he sided with the anti-fracking recommendation. “I’m sure the people who disagree with this will continue to disagree.”
Some of those who disagree showed up Monday night. At least one media outlet estimated the crowd in Binghamton at 200; organizers said the crowd ranged from 500 to 600.
The economies in counties outside the New York City metropolitan areas have been struggling for years. The natural gas-rich Marcellus Shale and Utica Shale formations extend into New York, and drilling supporters see gas extraction through hydraulic fracturing — the process in which rock is fractured by highly pressurized liquid — as a way to revive the economy.
Binghamton is located in Broome County, on the Pennsylvania border, which has experienced an economic boost because of oil and gas.
“We need work here,” truck driver Steve Stoddard told the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin on Monday night. “I’ve watched this area continually degrade until people call this Doom County, because everything that comes here dies.”
But fracking opponents say Cuomo made the right call.