Looks like some key people have taken to heart Andrew Cuomo’s real message on fracking.
Chesapeake Energy has just announced it is abandoning more than 13,000 acres of land it had leased for oil and gas drilling.
Chesapeake started buying up drilling rights 13 years ago, no doubt because this land sits atop the Marcellus Shale — a cornucopia of new energy that’s already fostered a huge boom on the Pennsylvania side of the border, creating good jobs and boosting tax revenues.
But the company was caught between a governor committed to delay and leaseholders arguing for better terms.
The irony of the move is that it comes in the wake of a new study highlighting how the lower energy costs that fracking brings are providing a major boost to the US economy.
According to the just-released study from IHS Cambrige Energy Research Associates, in 2012 the natural-gas extraction process known as fracking helped:
-Support 2.1 million American jobs.
-Produce almost $75 billion in federal and state revenues.
-Generate $283 billion to GDP.
-And boost national per-household income by more than $1,200.
The findings are similar to those of other studies.
For example, a Manhattan Institute study earlier this year comparing fracking-friendly Pennsylvania to New York found that “the income of residents in the 28 New York counties above the Marcellus Shale has the potential to expand by 15 percent or more over the next four years — if the state’s moratorium is lifted.”
Even Gov. Cuomo admitted there are economic benefits to fracking when pro-fracking President Obama visited the state last month.
Then again, he had to: The economic benefits are becoming impossible to deny. So the strategy seems to be, say as little as possible and make a policy out of permanent delay.
The people of New York deserve better.
And they shouldn’t have to wait any longer.
Fracking would bring jobs to people who badly need them and revenues to a state strapped for cash, while helping revive a battered upstate economy.
Chesapeake is not the first company to walk away from fracking in New York, but it is one of the largest. It signals that even the people who stand to profit are concluding that it’s just never going to happen here.
And for that we can thank Andrew Cuomo.