State legislative Democrats want to block fracking until 2015 — and upstate Republicans are furious.
The Senate GOP’s No. 2 charged celebrities are successfully using their influence with Gov. Cuomo and other pols to keep high-volume natural-gas drilling from creating jobs in his community.
“It would be a shame if economic development in the Southern Tier gets thrown under the bus because of Bobby Kennedy and Yoko Ono,” said Sen. Tom Libous of Binghamton.
The Assembly passed a bill yesterday to block fracking until at least May 15, 2015.
Robert Kennedy Jr. noted he once supported fracking but now believes “it will make a few people rich by further impoverishing and sickening communities that can least afford the burden of broken roads, toxic emissions and poisoned water.”
Kennedy, a member of Cuomo’s fracking advisory panel and the governor’s former brother-in-law, said New York should be backing renewable energy.
Meantime, the oil and gas industry said drillers are already fleeing New York, which imposed a fracking moratorium in 2008.
“This pace will accelerate if this legislation is passed,” said New York State Petroleum Council director Karen Moreau.