ELEPHANT CORNER: New York’s Gift To Pennsylvania

“Merry Christmas Commonwealth of Pennsylvania from your good neighbor the State of New York”, signed “Yours Truly, ANDREW CUOMO, GOVERNOR.”

Last week New York decided to extend its ban on the use of hydraulic fracturing of shale rock in order to develop its extensive shale-gas reserves. This was a gift to Pennsylvania. Additional sources of shale gas could reduce the price of natural gas which is already depressed. The New York ban thus is good for natural-gas extraction companies and the hundreds of thousands of workers in our state that benefit from this energy revolution.

Others who think they winners are the environmentalists that claim HF damages our water supply. Of course, they conveniently forget the Obama Administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (which has to be the most environmentally focused EPA I can remember) has not found a case where the HF process has damaged our water sources.

The real winner, I believe, is Andrew Cuomo. He has been rumored to be looking to run for President in 2016. He probably heard loud and clear the left wing of his party has no time for the energy sector.

Graphic courtesy of the Jewish Daily Forward

Earlier this month, in an attempt to keep an endangered Democrat from losing to a Republican in a run-off race in Louisiana, SENATE MAJORITY LEADER HARRY REID allowed Louisiana Democratic SEN. MARY LANDRIEU to introduce legislation to approve the Keystone XL pipeline. Reid previously had blocked any vote on the issue as in my opinion it put PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA in an awkward position.

Signing the bill would make labor groups and moderate voters happy, but would alienate the more left wing environmentally focused of the Democratic Party. No bill was a win/win for Obama. However, Reid saw the potential to save Landrieu as a plus. The Republican opposition did not destroy her bill, but her Democratic colleagues brought it down in flames.

This sent a message to Democrats looking to 2016 as to where the left has positioned itself on environmental issues. This was on top of the move to push Massachusetts SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN to run to the left of Hillary Clinton on economic issues.   Clinton responding to the call of the left with comments such as, “Don’t let anybody tell you that, ah, you know, it’s corporations and businesses that create jobs.” Tracking back to more moderate positions by Cuomo and Clinton in a general election while not impossible will be challenging. Thus a gift for the Republicans.

The losers in the New York HF ban are the middle-class farmers and other landowners who cannot develop their mineral rights. Landowners such as farmers’ spokesman DAVID JOHNSON noted the State’s study that was the basis for the continuation of the HF ban did not evidence any clear scientific problems but rather the desire for additional study. HF is not a new process. It has been around for 60 years. How much more study do we need?

Also the state failed to look to the environmental benefits of the use of abundant shale gas. Owing to the decreased pricing for natural gas, electric utilities have increased the use of natural gas over coal in electric generation. Since 2005, the US has reduced the emission of carbon dioxide by 14%. There is an army of environmentalist that believes carbon dioxide will be the cause of catastrophic climate change. Do the environmentalists not understand their failure to get on the same page dilutes their messages?

The good news for Pennsylvania is that although GOV. TOM CORBETT lost to TOM WOLF, Wolf does not want to ban HF but to tax it. And any tax he might want to levy will be limited if not stymied by our Republican-dominated legislature.

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