Two of the largest, most powerful electoral states have become the fiercest fracking battlegrounds in the nation – with a major citizen group in Texas demanding that industry regulators turn from “lapdogs” to “watchdogs” and a top New York state official warning that new highly anticipated fracking regulations could take the entire summer to draft. Neither development is good news for the beleaguered natural gas drilling industry that, until only months ago, pretty much had carte blanche to run roughshod over the environment. The stage is now set for a bitter regulatory fight just as the political campaign season begins gearing up for 2012 elections. In New York, according to the Associated Press, the “…[head of the state Department of Environmental Conservation] Joe Martens said DEC staff will meet twice each week starting in early April and through the summer to complete a new environmental impact statement for gas drilling that addresses issues raised in the 13,000 comments received on the 809-page first draft completed in September 2009.” That has big implications because natural gas drillers want New York to immediately end its moratorium on fracking in the Marcellus Shale region. The state has been “in review” mode since 2008, and now environmental ...
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