Environmental groups are not satisfied with New York State’s current stance on oil fracking. They claim that the hydraulic fracturing of natural gas wells cannot regulate or adequately safeguard the state’s water supplies from being contaminated.
Tony Avella is sponsoring a bill to ban hydraulic fracturing and believes it is the current most important environmental issue in the state in the past 100 years. According to him this is very necessary New York legislative intent. He is aiming for a no tolerance policy as opposed to the more commonplace solution of tightening regulations.
Some environmental groups believe that a strict black-and-white approach will be less effective in gaining support. The Department of Environmental Conservation in New York has not considered new gas wells since 2008 and plenty of new regulations are expected to take place at some point this year. The issue is so hot that the office received approximately 40,000 public comments on the proposal.
On the other side are the industry groups that believe in the safety of their drilling. They believe if the regulations get too strict it will basically shut down any shale gas retrieval within the state because the costs will be too steep.
However this is just another addition to the growing list. More than two dozen bills related to gas drilling and environmental concerns have been introduced and circulated. For more New York legislative history visit NYLS.org.