State GOP Chairman Ed Cox plans an all-out-attack on Gov. Cuomo for “caving in to environmental Luddites’’ by refusing to approve “fracking’’ for natural gas in upstate’s Southern Tier, The Post has learned.
Cox, in what is expected to be the toughest GOP attack yet on Cuomo, will claim that the governor’s nearly three-year-long refusal to authorize natural-gas drilling is a “metaphor for indecision and Cuomo’s general refusal to face up to the real challenges facing the state,’’ said a source close to Cox.
Cox will charge that Cuomo’s “dithering’’ on fracking is directly responsible for preventing the return of prosperity to hundreds of thousands of people living in the economically hard-pressed and, significantly, Republican-oriented Binghamton region — even as thousands of drilling-related jobs have been created right across the border in Pennsylvania.
Cox’s attack will be delivered a day after the Nov. 5 elections, at a meeting of the state’s Independent Oil and Gas Association, which says Cuomo’s indecision has badly damaged many of its member companies.
“The whole world is being transformed by fracking for natural gas and it’s being done safely right across the border in Pennsylvania,’’ said the source close to Cox.
“This is an opportunity for the United States to be energy-independent from the Muslim countries of the Middle East, and New York should be a leader, but instead, Cuomo just gives in to the environmental Luddites of the Democratic Party.”
The term “Luddites’’ comes from the early 19th- century English textile workers who smashed newly introduced automated weaving machinery that signaled the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution.
Cox has strong environmental credentials and a good deal of personal knowledge to talk about the fracking issue.
He’s chairman of the New York League of Conservation Voters Education Fund and is on the board of directors of Noble Energy, an independent gas- and oil-exploration company with more than $17 billion in assets.
Cuomo has claimed that he’s waiting for an assessment of “the science’’ of fracking before making a final decision, but even those close to him concede the delay is connected to the potent political power of the anti-fracking movement.
Cox’s speech, meanwhile, will rip Cuomo for allegedly being more concerned with the appearance of addressing the state’s problems than with actually solving them.
“No amount of splashing around in the waters of the Adirondacks or sipping wine in the Finger Lakes can change the fact that New York is the most taxed, least business-friendly state in the nation,’’ said a second source close to Cox, referring to recent trips by Cuomo upstate.
Cox’s attack will come as polls show Cuomo remains popular with the public and at a time when the GOP is struggling to find a strong candidate to run against him.
The GOP failed in recent days to recruit Donald Trump — aides said he’s focused on a possible presidential run — and two other possible candidates, Dutchess County Executive Marcus Molinaro and Assemblyman Steve McLaughlin of Rensselaer, are given no chance of winning.
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Speculation is growing that Cuomo will dump little-known Lt. Gov. Robert Duffy, a one-time mayor of Rochester, from his reelection ticket.
Some believe aides to Cuomo leaked last week’s revelation that Duffy was secretly talking to a Rochester business group about a new job — in an effort to drive Duffy out.
Duffy, who has done little to help Cuomo’s weak standing with upstate voters, quickly said he’s no longer interested in the Rochester job.
But speculation has already begun on possible replacements, including former Cuomo administration development official Leecia Eve, who is Verizon’s vice president for government affairs in the tri-state region, a former aide to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and daughter of former Deputy Assembly Speaker Arthur Eve of Buffalo.