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Albany, NY – An advisory panel on hydrofracking in New York may not meet its initial November deadline to report on potential fees to charge gas drillers and other impacts on proposed hydrofracking on the state. Capitol Correspondent Karen DeWitt reports...
Rob Moore, with Environmental Advocates, and a member of the Cuomo administration environmental department's fracking advisory committee, says he's been told to expect to attend meetings until the end of January, which could delay the initial November 1st timetable for the committee to report.
Moore says several other state agencies that need to provide input on how to structure potential fees for gas drillers and other impacts were not yet prepared to do so, and a planned October 14th meeting was canceled.
"You have four of the five agencies involved in this that were clearly caught flat footed," said Moore.
A spokeswoman for the state's Department of Environmental Conservation, Emily DeSantis, says the DEC anticipates "the timing of the November report will be discussed at the next panel meeting" on October 25th. But she says the panel had planned all along to continue its meetings until February.
The news comes on the same day that prominent fracking advisory committee member Robert Kennedy Jr, a former fracking advocate, expressed grave reservations about the practice in an entry on the Huffington Post.
Moore did not want to comment on the article, but says his own participation on the panel has "heightened his concerns" about fracking.
In Albany, I'm Karen DeWitt.