Great Quotes of Late in the Fracking Debate

"My property is in Lycoming County, and I'm fortunate that I'm surrounded by the PA State Forest.  I was notified today that I've been pooled for royalties, and I received my first check from Anadarko.  This is going to be a monthly occurrence??  The check stub indicated this check was for gas extracted between December 11th 2011 and January 12th 2012.  Ho-Ly Smokes!"

— 47seijar, a Natural Gas Forums participant, in a  
March 26 entry deep inside a thread entitled, 
"Big Week for PA Royalty Owners — or — 
OMG, Mildred, We've Been Side-By-Sided!"

"Enjoy the weekend, and keep in mind that every single thing that the Tom West's and Henry Kramer's of the world have told you about the law in this area has been dead wrong. Period."

"P.S. Go 'Cuse."

— Park Foundation-funded local government lobbyist David Slottje, in a March 23 
email to his anti-frack supporters — apparently rattled by an Oneonta Daily Star story 
by Joe Mahoney.  Industry lawyer Tom West was reported to have recently
unearthed some old papers which could reverse town drill bans — on the 
strength of better documentation of NYS "legislative intent," circa 1981. 

('Cuse exited the Elite Eight the following night.  As for the rest, we'll see.) 

"Look, I understand problems, you know?  There are 9,000 reasons why you shouldn't do something.  I tend to be an optimist and focus on how do we get to yes here.  I understand the concerns.  I understand the problems.  I also understand — we need energy.  And, if we're talking about bringing jobs back to this state, you need energy.  And you need a constant supply of affordable energy.  How are we gonna do it?  [In a rumbling, lowered voice] 'Well, I see issues.'  Yeah, I see issues, too.  How do we sit down and get to yes.  And that's the difference — one of the differences — between government being the obstacle and the facilitator.  It's easy to find reasons not to do something.  It really is.  And it's easy to pander to the fears of people.  Yes, but that's not, I believe, doing the job responsibly.  How do you address the problem, but get to yes, so we can move forward?"

— New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, appearing March 28 on public radio's 
Capital Pressroom with Susan Arbetter — but not actually talking about 
shale gas.  Instead, Cuomo was responding to previously aired criticism 
of his "Energy Highway" plan — which has been so far mostly associated 
with a private sector proposal to import Canadian power through 
a low-aesthetic-impact underwater cable running down the 
Lake Champlain-Lake George-Hudson River corridor. 

"They don't get how close they came to losing 1,100 jobs out of this community...  We could be looking at an entirely different scenario — one where they're packing their bags and leaving the area."

— Delaware County IDA Chair Jim Thomson, March 27, in a story by Lissa Harris of the
Catskills regional blog Watershed Post.  Thomson was referring to drill ban activists 
who nearly succeeded — prior to intercession from the county Planning Board — 
in convincing the Town of Sidney to zone out both natural gas drilling and 
infrastructure.  As first written, the ban was alleged to jeopardize a push 
by 1,100-worker Amphenol to stay put in Sidney, partly by 
converting to natgas — if a proposed supply pipeline 
goes through down the Susquehanna River Valley.

 
"It is unclear how a comprehensive health impact assessment would be performed on an activity that is not taking place in New York at this time."

— IOGA of NY Executive Director Brad Gill in a March 23 statement 
urging New York leaders to not bother budgeting for a $100,000 study 
of the presumed human health impacts of hydraulic fracturing — pathways 
unspecified.  The proposal was actually dropped days later in the push 
to get an on-time budget — disappointing anti-drilling activists, who 
appear to have been hoping to create another study they 
could then argue New York should await the results on. 

"Thanks for the synopsis...  It helps me to focus when I read the course of events...  I know what I know and I refuse to rewrite or negate the history of events here."

— yoko (pen name of Dimock, PA, anti-frack activist Victoria Switzer), in a 

March 19 comment on a blog post by former Binghamton Press reporter 
— now book author — Tom Wilber.  Switzer was reponding to the 
(for some reason, disheartening) news that federal EPA water test results 
showed clean water among 11 of the households that have been locked 
for months in litigation with Cabot Oil and Gas (alleging the opposite).

"Norse Energy CEO Mark Dice awaiting a decision on the environmental approval in New York in a few weeks."

— Hegnar Online, an overseas web site for investors, in a March 28 headline 

(Google-translated from Norwegian) for a brief item that 
didn't seem to have much further detail.