Editor’s Note. 9 Aug 2023. Citizens Campaign Re-organized their website in 2015 and archive.org does not have a good record of their earlier publications. They continue to be advocates for environmental responsibility.
Citizens Campaign for the Environment (CCE) was formed in 1985 by a small group of concerned citizens who recognized the need to provide public involvement to advance stronger environmental policy. Today, CCE has grown to a 120,000-member organization with offices in Farmingdale, NY, Albany, NY, Syracuse, NY, and Buffalo, NY. CCE continues to work to empower the public by providing members with opportunities to participate in the political process and thereby advance a strong environmental agenda.
https://www.citizenscampaign.org/about
Read: Deep Drilling, Deep Pockets in New York State Campaign Contributions and Lobbying Expenditures by Fracking Interests to January 2014 Influence Public Policy, published by Common CauseJuly 2010 (PDF)
In January, Common Cause NY issued a report on the influence of political contributions from the natural gas industry to affect public policy on hydrofracking. The report, Deep Drilling Deep Pockets Part 3, revealed that from January 2007 to October 2011, the Natural Gas industry made 2,349 campaign contributions to state and local politicians and parties. These contributions represent over $1.34 million in natural gas industry campaign contributions.
Lerner continued: “When we released our report, Common Cause NY called on the DEC to extend the public comment period (which they did) because ‘New Yorkers need an adequate amount of time to address doubts about the ability of the DEC to properly regulate the natural gas industry given budget constraints, environmental concerns, as well as the natural gas industry’s alarming degree of financial influence on state lawmakers.’ Today those doubts have been confirmed. The special access which the natural gas industry is being afforded is an impressive return on their investment of millions of dollars in campaign contributions and lobbying expenditures. It is impossible for New Yorkers to have confidence in the objectivity of state government under the circumstances. All communications between DEC and any interested parties should be fully transparent and part of the public record, not conducted through private emails that need to be FOILed.
Common Cause NY Calls DEC Natural Gas Industry Communications on Hydrofracking “outrageous”
Read the Citizens Campaign report, Protecting New York’s Air, Land, Water and People: What’s the Hydro-Fracking Rush? (PDF 3.1 MB)
Read “Affirming Gasland” (PDF) from Damascus Citizens
Editor’s Note: Status of Fracking in NY from FracTracker (Citizens Campaign was not well archived)
Editor’s Note (9 Aug 2023): Interative Map of New York County by County from FracTracker, NYS hydraulic fracturing bans and moratoria, 9 October 2017
Editor’s Note (9 Aug 2023): Update – NY Legislature Passes Bill to Close Fracking Waste Loophole. 22 Jul 2020. Natural Resources Defense Council. (NRDC)
US Department of the Interior. Bureau of Land Management Hollister Field Office. Oil and Gas Leasing and Development. SCOPING SUMMARY REPORT AUGUST 2014: Environmental Impact Statement and Resource Management Plan Amendment.
Comment cited, Table C-13 Issue No. 8: Socioeconomics p. c-94:
“Have the good citizens who are running this session taken the time to watch the movie gaslands one and two? Have you read the results of studies and interviews with people in Texas, the Bakken fields in North Dakota and New York State where the Marcellus Shale has been fracked into a new kind of hell on earth. Unfortunately, only after their lovely farmland has been destroyed did the people of New York State vote to stop fracking- too little, too late. And this vote was taken against the advice and will of the governor of the state and his allies- the billionaire corporate executives who buy and sell our representatives on New York’s proposal to permit Hydro-fracking for natural gas extraction in the Marcellus and Utica shale formations.
US Department of the Interior. Bureau of Land Management Hollister Field Office. Oil and Gas Leasing and Development. SCOPING SUMMARY REPORT AUGUST 2014: Environmental Impact Statement and Resource Management Plan Amendment.
See also: Tom Myers’ report criticizing the 2009 New York State DSGEIS:
Myers, Tom. Review and Analysis of DRAFT Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement On The Oil, Gas and Solution Mining Regulatory Program Well Permit Issuance for Horizontal Drilling and High-Volume Hydraulic Fracturing to Develop the Marcellus Shale and Other Low-Permeability Gas Reservoirs. Technical Memorandum. Citizens Campaign for the Environment. New York NY: Natural Resources Defense Council, December 28, 2009. (92 pages).
See also: Jon Hurdle. Fracking not a cleaner alternative: Cornell prof. 31 Mar 2010. Reuters.
See also: Neil Conan. Sparks Fly Over ‘Gasland’ Drilling Documentary. 24 Feb 2011. NPR.
See also: NY Legislature Passes Bill to Close Fracking Waste Loophole. 22 Jul 2020. Natural Resources Defense Council. (NRDC).
