Tracy Carluccio in her commentary “Cuomo’s chance: A clean future for N.Y.,” Aug. 24, urges Gov. Andrew Cuomo to ban hydraulic fracturing, blaming the natural gas-producing technique for having been the cause of air and water pollution in other states.
However, this would be the wrong move for New York. Both Lisa Jackson, environmental protection agency administrator, and John P. Holdren, President Obama’s senior science adviser, have separately testified before Congress saying there is no proven case of water contamination due to hydraulic fracturing.
There also is a strong lack of documented evidence that hydraulic fracturing is dangerous to air quality. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality spent months monitoring air quality near the Barnett Shale, another one of America’s large natural gas fields, and found no immediate health concerns in the area.
From July 2011 to July 2012, New York experienced the largest spike in its unemployment rate compared to every other state in the country and that unemployment rate sits at 9.1 percent, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Allowing hydraulic fracturing could be the quickest and most effective move for Governor Cuomo to boost much-needed job growth for New York.
[First published in The Albany Times-Union.]
Taylor Smith was a policy analyst for The Heartland Institute specializing in energy, climate, and environmental regulation. He is coauthor with James M.
