One day after state Environmental Conservation Commissioner Joe Martens said that a decision on whether hydraulic fracturing will be approved in New York was “months, not years away,” Gov. Cuomo took a more urgent tone.
“We’re going to have a decision in a couple of months,” Cuomo told an upstate newspaper Wednesday.
That’s about the most definitive the governor has been since early last year, when his administration released an initial report touting the economic benefits of the new natural-gas-extraction process.
But then, unhappily, he waved a checkered flag.
“The debate has been going on for years,” he said, “so it’s not like a few weeks this way or the other is going to make a significant difference.”
Actually, weeks can make a big difference.
The review at issue has been under way for months; as each week passes, Not-In-My-Back-Yard-driven opposition to fracking mounts,
Activists insinuate themselves into the argument with baseless scare stories, and frightened local governments are beginning to raise legal barriers to the process.
The fact is, fracking has proved not only to be a fundamentally safe undertaking, it has delivered immense economic benefits to localities across America.
New York is the only state in the nation where it is not allowed — and that needs to change.
The fear-mongering nihilism that has marked the debate so far needs to end — and, at the very least, it’s up to Cuomo to accelerate the current review.
Time is a-wasting.