Update: Confirmed: "...From "baseless speculation and premature" to complete truth in under four hours. Amazing." And here's the Ithaca Journal. Now on the DEC press release site too, and this Capitol Confidential post has the full text.
It sounds like Governor Cuomo wants to make conservative Dryden blogger One of Nine very happy by lifting the ban on hydrofracking in New York State except in the New York City and Syracuse watersheds:
The Cuomo administration is expected to lift what has been, in effect, a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing, a controversial technology used to extract natural gas from shale, people briefed on the administration's discussions said.
...by allowing the process in other parts of the state, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo would open up New York to one of the fastest-growing - critics would say reckless - areas of the energy industry.
A Cuomo administration spokesman called the report "baseless speculation and premature" but notably did not call it wrong. The best analysis I've seen is this, which notes that "Members of the Cuomo administration certainly seem ready to take advantage of fracking if the DEC and the governor decide to allow it."
It's also worth noting that no legislation restricting hydrofracking or drilling made it through the Senate this session, despite some last minute maneuvering, though it is at least possible for it to come up again later.
Given the existence of an active well application in the Town of Dryden, I have to say this makes the Town Board's possible July 20th vote on the ban they introduced that much more important.
Posted by simon at June 30, 2011 3:23 PM in New York State , energy