Deep Drilling, Deep Pockets Expenditures of the Natural Gas Industry in New York to Influence Public Policy Part II – Lobbying Expenditures A Report by Common Cause/New York April 2011
April 8, 2011
CC_REPORT_FINAL.PDF (application/pdf Object).
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NYS Proposed Water Withdrawal Legislation Mar. 2011
March 14, 2011
water withdrawal legislation A5318A-S3798
Dear Colleagues,
The Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter has serious concerns that, with little public debate, major changes to New York’s water laws are being proposed.
Water Withdrawal Permitting bills A5318A and S3798 do not address key issues relating to high-volume hydraulic fracturing or how to equitably allocate water among competing water users.
We are calling for hearings on the proposed legislation to address these and other issues.
The bill is on the agenda for this Tuesday’s (3/15/11) Assembly Environmental Conservation Committee meeting, so urgent action is needed to help distribute this advisory now and outreach to Albany legislators on Monday (3/14/11) to prevent the bill from moving out of committee before hearings are held.
Calls to Albany legislators should be made on Monday, March 14th.
Our priority is to reach out to Assembly EnCon members (including Barbara Lifton and Gary Finch) expressing the need for a hearing to address our questions and concerns. Please find below:
- Please call members of the Assembly EnCon committee (attached list) today (3/14/11) and ask for public hearings on Water Withdrawal Legislation A5318A and S3798.
- Environmental Conservation Committee Members: Chair, Robert Sweeney
Members: Thomas Abinanti,William Barclay, Daniel Burling, Robert Castelli, John Ceretto, William Colton, Jane Corwin, Marcos Crespo, Steven Cymbrowitz, Gary Finch, Deborah Glick, Aileen Gunther, Sean Hanna, Ellen Jaffee, Brian Kavanagh, George Latimer, Barbara Lifton, Peter Lopez, Donna Lupardo, Daniel O’Donnell, Crystal Peoples-Stokes, Joseph Saladino, Teresa Sayward, Michelle Schimel
http://assembly.state.ny.us/comm/?sec=mem&id=15 (click on this link and enter the name of the assembly member and click on “contact” Phone numbers are in the attachment below.
- Read the longer list of concerns (also Atlantic Chapter brochure attached)
- We suggest you also request an in-district appointment with Assembly members for either Thursday or Friday and
- follow up with phone calls.Thanks for helping to protect the precious waters New York State.Best regards,
Gusti Bogok, Co-chair
Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter Gas Drilling Task Force
HEARINGS NEEDED ON PROPOSED WATER WITHDRAWAL LEGISLATION
- The New York State legislature is considering significant changes to New York’s water laws.
- These changes need public debate as they do not address the vast amounts of water used in high-volume hydraulic fracturing or how to equitably allocate water among competing water users.
- For these reasons and others, the Sierra Club is calling on the NYS legislature to hold hearings on the proposed water withdrawal legislation, A5318A and S3798.
More Background:
Sierra Club, Atlantic Chapter Flyer on Water Withdrawal Legislation
The following are among the issues we would like our legislators to address:
- The current usage of large private users needs to be known. Since 2010, large water users have been required to file water withdrawal reports and the DEC has been required to disclose the reports pursuant to §15-3301 of the Environmental Conservation Law. The DEC has not disclosed whether any entities have made the required filings and has not made the reports available. Legislators need this information in order to properly evaluate the Legislation.
- An analysis of projected aquifer usage needs to be made with particular attention to the projected demands of high volume, hydraulic fracturing. Should permits issued be tied to a percentage of an aquifer’s capacity rather than a flat amount?
- An analysis of whether the proposed legislation will facilitate inter-basin transfers of waste water, including fracking flowback.
- An analysis of the impact permitting will have on the rights of non-permitted water users. The proposed legislation will change New York’s water laws from a riparian rights to a regulated riparian system. It needs to be understood whether the issuance of permits to large water users could hinder non-permitted users from having
sufficient access to water in times of water scarcity. Will the issuance of water withdrawal permits restrict the DEC’s powers to address harmful water withdrawals? - The need to allow private enforcement of permit conditions by parties harmed by the failure of a permit holder to comply with its permit conditions.
- The potential for abuse of eminent domain if municipalities are allowed to deplete potable water sources through sale of water to commercial buyers, and then use eminent domain to enlarge their water sources to compensate for those losses.
- The fiscal and public trust implications of whether or not fees are charged for permitting and for water usage.
- The DEC’s projections as to how many permits will be required and the additional staffing necessary to issue and provide oversight of the proposed permits.
- The need for more defined standards for the regulatory program in the proposed legislation. For example, §15-0503 of the Environmental Conservation Law relating to the issuance of permits for structures in water (dams and docks) included in the bill, contains much more specific standards for the issuance of permits.
- The environmental health and environmental justice consequences of issuing water withdrawal permits to large water users.
- The need to include language affirming the riparian rights in the bill. Language affirming riparian rights is contained in the Delaware River Basin Compact, the Susquehanna River Basin Compact and the Great Lakes/St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact.
- The need to more clearly define the state’s public trust obligations to hold the waters of the state in trust for all the residents of the state.
The bill will not allow drillers open access to water – that is the situation that currently exists in NY and what the bill will rectify. The bill will set up a regulatory system by which any large user would have to apply for a permit, comply with water conservation and efficiency standards, and be subjected to DEC oversight with public scrutiny and input.
Currently, those impacted by other users have to wait until harm can be proven – after the damage is done. This program allows for preemptive action so that we can actually protect rather than remediate.
Members of the Assembly Environmental Conservation Committee
Clean Air Under Siege – NYTimes.com
February 6, 2011
Clean Air Under Siege – NYTimes. Feb. 6, 2011.
Shortly after he entered the Senate in 2007, John Barrasso told his Wyoming constituents that the country’s biggest need was an energy policy to deal with carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas.
That was then. In lockstep with other Senate Republicans, he helped kill last year’s energy and climate bill. Now he has introduced a bill that would bar the Environmental Protection Agency and any other part of the federal government from regulating carbon pollution.
Congress’s failure to enact a climate bill means that the E.P.A.’s authority to regulate these gases — an authority conferred by a landmark Supreme Court decision in 2007 — is, for now, the only tool available to the federal government to combat global warming.
The modest regulations the agency has already proposed, plus stronger ones it will issue later this year, should lead to the retirement of many of the nation’s older, dirtier coal-fired power plants and a dramatic reduction in carbon emissions.
Mr. Barrasso’s bill is not an isolated challenge. Senator James Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican who called global warming the “greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people,” has unveiled a somewhat narrower bill to undercut the E.P.A.’s authority to regulate carbon dioxide. Fred Upton, the Michigan Republican and new chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, simultaneously introduced a companion bill.
There are a half-dozen other such measures in circulation, at least one of which would weaken the agency’s long-held powers to regulate conventional ground-level pollutants like soot and mercury.
One or another of these bills has a real shot in the Republican-controlled House. Their chances are slimmer in the Senate, where the bigger danger is a proposal by Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, that would block any new regulations on power plants and other industrial sources for two years.
That is just obstruction by another name. It would delay modernization and ensure that more carbon is dumped into the atmosphere. History shows that regulatory delays have a way of becoming permanent.
It is tempting to blame the entire energy industry for these attacks on the E.P.A.’s authority. The oil companies are pushing hard against any new rules. The utilities are split. Some companies like General Electric — whose chief executive, Jeffrey Immelt, is now advising President Obama — signed on to the energy bill that passed the House last year, when it was still under Democratic control.
Mr. Inhofe, an outlier before the midterm elections, has a lot more company now. Even among lawmakers who accept the facts of global warming, he is getting considerable mileage with baseless charges that the E.P.A. is running amok.
The agency does have a heavy regulatory agenda. It will issue proposals not only on greenhouse gases but also ozone, sulfur dioxide, and mercury, which poisons lakes and fish. These regulations are fully consistent with the Clean Air Act. Some of them should have been completed during the Bush years; all are essential to protect the environment. The agency’s administrator, Lisa Jackson, has moved cautiously, making clear that she will target only the largest polluters and not, as the Republicans claim, mom-and-pop businesses.
In his State of the Union address, President Obama promised to protect “common-sense safeguards” to the nation’s environment. The rules under siege in Congress will help clean the air, reduce toxic pollution in fish and slow emissions of greenhouse gases. It is hard to imagine anything more sensible than that.
Failures of State/Federal Government in Protecting Communities and Environment
December 14, 2010
- 109th Congress Energy Policy Act 2005, Title III, Section 327 exempted the use of fracking fluids from Safe Drinking Water Act (SWDA).
- The current 111th congress has let HR 2766 and S 1215 (bills that remove the fracking fluids exemption from the SDWA) stagnate in committee.
- NYS ECL Article 23, Title 3, Section 23-0303 removed home rule from local communities.
- NYS ECL Article 23, Title 9, Section 23-0901 specifies Compulsory Integration.
- NYS DEC issued dGEIS 30-Sep-09 containing several shortcomings/flaws that do not protect our environment.
NYS Passes Suspension of Hydrofracking Bill-Nov.29,2010
November 30, 2010
Pushback!
What Does the Moratorium Bill Really Say? Marcellus Effect. Dec. 2, 2010.
New York State Assembly Passes a Moratorium Bill!
Paterson Expected to Sign It!
In an historic vote, the New York State Assembly enacted a temporary ban on hydraulic fracturing which will remain in effect until May 15, 2011. The bill, A11443B/S08129B was approved by the Senate last summer and is now on its way to Governor Paterson, who is expected to sign it into law.
The de facto moratorium that has been in effect for the past two years can be attributed to Governor Paterson because he ordered the NYS DEC to prepare a new environmental impact statement to set standards for issuing permits for high-volume hydraulic fracturing and the DEC has yet to finalize its work. By signing this bill, Governor Paterson will cement his reputation as the first Governor in the country to protect his citizens from the precipitous onslaught of dangerous and poorly regulated shale gas extraction.
The vote in the Assembly caps an incredible two weeks for those of us who have been working hard to combat the corporations that intend to turn our communities into sacrificial energy zones.
Pushback!
On November 17th, the Broome County legislature rejected, for the second time, a plan to lease county lands for drilling. The 10-3 vote was an embarrassing setback for County Executive Barbara Fiala, who has recklessly been pushing fracking since landsmen first showed up in the county.
On the same day, Pittsburgh became the first city in the nation to ban drilling outright. Residents of that city already have had a taste of fracking – literally. Beginning in 2008 the city’s drinking water began turning smelly and brown after huge quantities of drilling wastewater were dumped into the Monongahela River, which supplies the city.
The day after Thanksgiving, Governor Paterson acknowledged the role ordinary citizens have played in defeating dangerous drilling saying “This is a very good example of public participation. Our DEC…originally ruled that hydrofracking would not affect the water quality in the area, but we’ve received additional information and have not been able to come to a conclusion as to whether or not this is a good idea… We’re not going to risk public safety or water quality… At this point, I would say that the hydrofracking opponents have raised enough of an argument to thwart us going forward at this time.”
Mother Nature lends a hand
On November 18th drilling giant EnCana announced that it was pulling out of Luzerne County, PA because its exploratory wells indicated that “wells were unlikely to produce natural gas in commercial quantities.” Is this the beginning of the unraveling of the much ballyhooed Marcellus Shale play, as predicted by Arthur Berman? Only time will tell…
…for now we’ll just say
HAPPY THANKSGIVING INDEED!
GDACC 
