Posted on 04/02/2013 12:14:31 PM PDT by neverdem
Although he is famously averse to leaving New York State, Gov. Cuomo would be well advised to make a day trip 60 miles across the border to a booming city in Pennsylvania.
Williamsport, a town of 30,000 people, is renowned as the site of the Little League World Series. More instructive to Cuomo as he dithers over approving fracking for natural gas in New York is how stunningly the industry has improved the area’s fortunes.
Once plagued by a shrinking population and economy — like much of upstate New York — Williamsport now boasts the third-fastest-growing metropolitan economy in the country.
Young people are flocking there to take good-paying jobs. Hotels, real estate agencies and car dealerships are doing land-office business.
Williamsport had the good fortune — also like upstate New York — to be situated above the gas-rich underground rock formation known as the Marcellus Shale, which can now be profitably tapped thanks to the drilling method known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.
The process involves drilling deep into the earth, then pumping in millions of gallons of chemically treated water at high pressure to fracture the surrounding rock and release pockets of fuel. Across the country, the technology has unleashed massive reserves of gas.
In places like Williamsport, fracking has proven to be an economic powerhouse. But not in New York — a state with an 8.4% unemployment rate and well below-par job creation — because Cuomo cannot bring himself to give the regulatory green light for drilling on his turf.
When Cuomo took office, the state Department of Environmental Conservation had studied fracking for 21/2 years. An additional two years and three months have passed, and he keeps dragging out environmental and health reviews.
Meanwhile, environmentalists and not-in-my-back-yard activists have turned popular opinion with scare stories, and towns on New York’s side of the border flounder. Take Binghamton, which saw its economy shrink by 1% in 2011 and suffers an unemployment rate of 10.2%
Or the Utica-Rome area, which also shrank and also has 10.2% unemployment.
Or Syracuse, where the economy was down 1.2%, in 2011. Or Ithaca, down 1.6%.
Across upstate, 35 of New York’s 62 counties lost population from 2010 to 2012 while the state added jobs at a 40% slower pace than the nation.
These are symptoms of a long-term slide that Cuomo promised to turn around with business-friendly reforms.
Yet he continues to deny the go-ahead for fracking, the one sure game-changer.
Drilling would create tens of thousands of jobs and pour billions into the economy.
New York would enjoy a gusher of revenue, enabling Cuomo to deliver legitimate tax relief without the flim-flam of raising one group’s taxes to give other groups a break.
The governor might even be able to shed New York’s terrible distinction of being the highest-taxed state.
New York’s draft regulations include belt-and-suspender environmental protections. Cuomo promised to act based on science, not politics. Given the crying needs upstate, his motivations and actions are inexplicable.
Since West Virginia was split off from Virginia, maybe it's time for Western New York to split off from NY State. There is a huge cultural gap in addition to the economic separation.
Some people talk of it, but it is highly unlikely. Doing so would certainly make Upstate NY a "normal" place, with a better economy.
Like Rome, the center of the “Empire State” is the center of the Empire, and in NY that’s Manhattan; and Manhattan and it’s region have the majority of the state’s reps and they could care less about economic development upstate NY. When they are running for state-wide or a U.S. senatorial office, they give lip service to upstate economic development, as Billary did, but that lasts only as long as the election campaign, and no longer.
Thanks for the ping!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.