Because “…it’s the billionaires and the gazillionaires that have all the access.”
The Albany Times-Union reports,
Republican Sen. Greg Ball was joined by IDC members David Carlucci and David Valesky on Wednesday afternoon at a press conference to introduce a moratorium on hydrofracking in New York through June 1, 2013. The moratorium is likely DOA due to opposition from Ball’s fellow Senate Republicans, who so far sound more than satisfied to let the Department of Environmental Conservation move ahead with its impact statement and regulation crafting (some in Ball’s conference, however, would like to see the agency move faster).
The lawmakers were joined by residents from the region in and around Dimock, Pa., a community in the headlines due to claims that nearby drilling operations have contaminated water wells and had other deleterious effects on the environment.
Ball said that opposition to hydrofracking was a cause that bridges the gap between environmentalists in the Occupy Wall Street movement and property-rights-loving Tea Party types. He added that more of his GOP colleagues were coming around to the idea that the drilling process presents peril to state resources and property…
Boone Pickens said that he had done fracking over decades in literally thousands of wells with no adverse effects. I know of no actual problems with fracking in the past. The problem is not so much the fetish for more Government but with people’s inability to process data. The very same thing happened with breast implants. Decades of good results were overwhelmed by imagination.
Meanwhile, it’s the poor that have access to higher prices and shortages. Good thinking. Whips up the resentment even more. As always, the answer is more government. “Govern harder, not smarter.”