FWW Organizes Anti-CO2 “Fracking” Protest at NY Gov.’s NYC Office ANTI-DRILLING/FOSSIL FUEL | HYDRAULIC FRACTURING | INDUSTRYWIDE ISSUES | NEW YORK | STATEWIDE NY
Just one teeny, tiny problem: The plan proposed by Southern Tier Solutions isn’t fracking! At least not in the traditional sense. The plan does not use water and sand, and it does not blow holes….
FWW Organizes Anti-CO2 “Fracking” Protest at NY Gov.’s NYC Office
ANTI-DRILLING/FOSSIL FUEL | HYDRAULIC FRACTURING | INDUSTRYWIDE ISSUES | NEW YORK | STATEWIDE NY
January 12, 2024
At the end of October, MDN told you about a company called Southern Tier CO2 to Clean Energy Solutions, based in Binghamton, NY, sending fliers to landowners in Broome, Tioga, and Chemung counties (along the border with Pennsylvania, where there is no doubt large amounts of Marcellus and Utica gas beneath the ground) inviting landowners to sign up for what appears to be an exciting opportunity to sell gas rights (see Company Seeks to Lease New York Mineral & Pore Rights for Flat $10). In December, we told you that Food & Water Watch (FWW) and other nutball green groups launched an all-out assault on the Southern Tier Solutions plan, organizing a form letter sent to NY Gov. Kathy Hochul and the Democrat-controlled state legislature (see Big Green Pressures NY Democrats to Reject CO2 Fracking in Upstate). Yesterday, FWW went one step further, organizing a small (but loud) protest in front of Gov. Hochul’s Manhattan office to pressure her to ban all forms of “fracking.”
Just one teeny, tiny problem: The plan proposed by Southern Tier Solutions isn’t fracking! At least not in the traditional sense. The plan does not use water and sand, and it does not blow holes in the rock layer. Instead, it uses liquefied carbon dioxide (CO2) to force its way into the rock layers. Yet Big Green is demagoguing the plan by using the word fracking to incite opposition.
Below is a press release from FWW chronicling yesterday’s protest. What you will read are comments from people who are unreasonable — not able to be reasoned with. Their hatred of all things fossil fuel has so colored their perception of the world they can no longer think rationally about energy. In some ways, we pity them.
On Thursday, 50+ activists organized by Food & Water Watch rallied outside Governor Hochul’s Manhattan office to protest a proposal by Southern Tier Solutions to evade New York’s long standing fracking ban with a dangerous CO2 fracking scam. The newly formed Texas company’s plans to drill thousands of wells and construct a dozen gas-burning power plants in the Southern Tier pose serious threats to water, communities, and the climate.
Alex Beauchamp, Food & Water Watch Northeast Region Director said:
“Fracking has no place in New York. It was true ten years ago when New York became the first state to ban the dirty, harmful practice, and it’s true today. Governor Hochul and the Legislature must get out ahead of Southern Tier Solutions’ profiteering scam and ban CO2 fracking outright.”
More than 90 organizations wrote to Governor Hochul, Senate Majority Leader Stewart-Cousins, Speaker Heastie, and DEC Commissioner Seggos last month, calling for a ban on CO2 fracking.
Zephyr Teachout, Law Professor at Fordham Law School said: “Our planet is burning up, and we are drowning. Here we are, more than nine years after one of the greatest climate victories, the banning of fracking in New York — and we are not going to let frackers back in. We are not going to allow a sacrifice zone in the Southern Tier. We are saying ‘hell no’.”
Dr. Sandra Steingraber, a biologist and co-founder of Concerned Health Professionals of New York, senior scientist at the Science and Environmental Health Network and lead author of “The Compendium of Scientific, Medical, and Media Findings Demonstrating Risks and Harms of Fracking” said: “What this Texas gas company is proposing is to turn New York State into a laboratory to conduct a giant experiment using taxpayer dollars that involves burning fossil fuels, trapping the carbon dioxide, and using it to frack more fossil fuels out of the earth in ways that imperil our air, water, climate, and health. What we are here to propose is NO. Governor Hochul needs to ban this nonsense. Fracking is fracking, and the harms of fracking are proven. Period.”
Sara Gronim of 350Brooklyn said: “The so-called ‘Southern Tier Solutions’ project is absurd. The company claims this will yield ‘clean energy’ but it’s just another way to drill for methane gas, a powerful climate pollutant. Governor Hochul and the Department of Environmental Conservation must stop this project.”
Pete Sikora, Climate and Inequality Campaigns Director for New York Communities for Change, said: “Governor Hochul should end this nonsense now, not leave open the possibility of an end run around New York’s historic fracking ban via tax farming for absurd federal oil and gas tax subsidies.”
Dorian Fulvio of 350NYC said: “Governor Hochul and the Legislature must ban fracking with carbon dioxide immediately. Proceeding with this CO2 fracking experiment would be the height of irresponsibility, risking the health and safety of New Yorkers, and for what? This project is just another delusional excuse to continue our addiction to fossil fuels and enrich the fossil fuel industry at the expense of the rest of the human race. New York State is already in serious jeopardy of missing its 2030 CLCPA clean energy and climate targets. It would be smarter to expedite renewable energy installations and to tell Southern Tier Solutions that NYS will not be its guinea pig.”
Roger Downs, Conservation Director for the Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter, said: “In 2020, the legislature and the governor came together to codify New York’s historic fracking ban and close loopholes that the oil and gas industry sought to exploit. Governor Hochul and the legislature must answer the call once again and protect all New Yorkers from this latest fracking threat that will most certainly drain limited DEC resources and divert us from our nation leading climate goals. Banning CO2 fracking and its harmful environmental impacts should be a primary objective of New York Lawmakers in 2024.”
Jeanne Bergman, Advisor on Policy and Sustainability for Sane Energy Project, said: “Regrettably, when New York banned hydrofracking, the state did not ban all drilling for gas and oil. As a result, a newly minted out-of-state company is now prospecting for cash and land, hoping to fleece investors and taxpayers with a bogus, untested, ‘sustainable’ CO2 fracking and carbon storage project. New York’s strong commitment to a clean energy transition and the wave of federal IRA funds are inevitably attracting scoundrels selling snake oil like net-zero fracking and direct air carbon capture, technologies that have never succeeded. This company is prospecting for capital, hoping to extract money to be deposited in out-of-state or off-shore accounts. The Department of Environmental Protection and other New York State agencies must take action to reject false solutions to the climate crisis and protect our people, economy, and environment.”
A recording of the event is available here.*
Be sure to click the link and watch at least a few minutes of the video. It shows just how unhinged this bunch has become. Notice that the jackets, hats, earmuffs, eyeglasses…even the signs they hold that say “OFF FOSSIL FUELS” are made from…fossil fuels! You can’t make this up. They are so stupid.