Draft NYS Energy Plan Released: It's Official — 54,000 Square Miles Surrounded by Reality

Pic from New York's 2014 Draft Energy Plan: Young people check the iPhone.

Here's the Cuomo Administration's internal marching orders yesterday, on the eve of his State of the State address:

Release the gloss!

Young hipster pictures! 

Hold the infrastructure! 

Extra techy! 

More buzzwords!  (You can never have too many buzzwords.)

The state's 2014 (it was previously due 2013) Draft Energy Plan was put out for public consumption and comment with the flick of a web page switch yesterday here.  The plan is a somewhat belated update of previous tomes from 2009 and 2002, both written in unparsed bureaucratese, as I previously discussed here.

So far, this seems to have gotten noticed only by Capital New York, with the for-once-pointed headline, "State plan calls for renewables and cost savings, skips fracking."

Volume 1, effectively the plan's executive summary, looks like some kind of wet dream shot out of the Twenty-Tens' incarnation of Fifties/Sixties adman Don Draper:  Glossy pics of multicultural young people, high tech lab geeks, a folksy greenhouseman, seductively lit solar installations, cool-looking windmills, a plug-in car, and even an Adirondack beaver pond!

The state's energy policymakers and their Apparently Hired Gloss Team felt no obligation whatsoever to actually illustrate the full panoply of New York State's current (and on-the-horizon) energy reality:  Power lines — I see them all the time, but no pics here.  A nuclear power plant?  I'm using some of those charged electrons right now, here in Syracuse, a short distance from Nine Mile Point on the Lake Ontario coast.  Hydropower?  I actually love that kind of renewable canoeable technology, but, sorry, no.  A flannel-shirted upstater prepping some renewable firewood?  I've done that — a lot of that, but, sorry, no such illustration.  A utility lineman, working overtime to recover New York State from Hurricane Sandy?  A train carrying crude oil through downtown Albany — because the Obama Administration has balked at getting the Keystone pipeline built?  A natural gas pipeline carrying largely fracked heat to anti-frack urbanites in NYC or New England?  A very topical, coal-burning plant, soon-to-be retired in favor of cheaper and cleaner natural gas?  A fuel oil truck driver, handing off the bill?  Or an electric meter?  Or a gas meter?    

And, of course, never mind a drill rig.  And never mind a Southern Tier landowner, standing with beseeching open arms on the Pennsylvania state line, two miles above millions of dollars of the very same shale gas that New York State consumes more of every day — but still refuses to allow the drilling for, inside its precious jurisdiction.

This is not energy policy or governance; this is the governance of wishful perception.  It's a totally disgraceful corruption to the professionalism of the state PSC, NYSERDA, NYPA, and DEC — agencies which have to grapple with the real world of New York's energy needs every day.

Here's a quick count of buzzwords, set against some real-world alternatives, just from the summary:

"sustain" or versions thereof — 16 times.

"renewable" — 20 times.

"clean" — 67 times!

"solar" — 15.

"coal" — 0.

"fossil fuel" — 4.

"natural gas" — 9.

"drilling" — 0.

"hydraulic" — 0.

"frack" — 0.

"shale" — 0.

"nuclear" — 0.

Don't get me wrong — I'm all for clean energy, alternatives, renewables, and conservation, especially if they are at least close to competitive, and especially if the New York economy gets as much of the action as possible.

But I'm not for disguising the reality of the situation.

I'm not for catering to the uninformed, wishful desires of everybody in New York who wants to feel vaguely good about the future, but to stay lit and warm throughout, burning what's extracted out of Pennsylvania. 

I'm not for NIMBY hypocrisy now rising up to become official state energy policy.

Team Cuomo Set to Decide Fate of Cayuga Lake Coal Plant — Sunset or Switch?

Coal Pile at AES Cayuga, a photo by ddbrown4 on Flickr (embedded by permission).

[Revised late in the day, Dec. 19, to accommodate the latest news:  Cayuga Operating and NYSEG have asked the NYS PSC for permission to again delay the next version of their Lansing Plant re-powering analysis, this time from Dec. 23, 2013 to Feb. 28, 2014.]

This past Sunday, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo moved decisively to score some rare points with ordinary people in Western New York, taking credit for saving the coal-fired electricity plant at Dunkirk, by greasing the bureaucratic wheels to re-power it with cleaner and cheaper natural gas.

Out that way, most power consumers, skilled workers, taxpayers, and local government people really liked the plan.  Media reports indicate the governor was honored in person with cheerleaders, a band, and banners of gratitude.

New York environmentalists didn't like the plan.  In fact, this group was faced with a seemingly once-in-a-lifetime choice between doing away with the old, proven horrors of acid rain (and many other kinds of air pollution) from coal, and coming to terms instead with the new, unproven horrors of fracking from the production of natural gas.  They advocated instead for a Plan C — alternative ideas, some involving renewables, and some involving adjustments to the overhead power line grid.

But they lost.

(And they never even offered to stick around to stand tall against the people who might later be upset by bigger bills, higher taxes, more overhead power lines, more windmills, or maybe another hydropower dam or two — ahhh, the life of an activist.)

Here's my question, though:  What is Cuomo going to do about the very similar coal-burner in Lansing, NY, which has been sitting mostly idle after a bankruptcy, due to the lost economics of coal (caused, actually, by the technological advent of fracking)? 

The plant sits just a few miles down the east shore of Cayuga Lake from Ithaca, the state's epicenter of anti-fracking activism.  In fact, the Lansing plant's been there, gobbling up miles of coal delivered by freight train, right in plain sight along the lakeshore, since the Mad Men mentality ruled during 1955, when it first came online.  Most locals still reference its original Milliken Station name.  But the plant is now suffering, and now ranks as holier-than-thou Ithaca's inconvenient, dirty little fossil fuels secret.

Kill it, or convert it, or do something completely different, it's the same question as at Dunkirk.

The main thing that's different about Lansing would seem to be the cultural setting — high above Cayuga's waters, wine tourists, Birkenstocks, Volvo's, and a resident population that's accustomed to regular bouts of protest, practically as an obsessive hobby.

So if it's good for the goose to switch Dunkirk over to natural gas, then what does the governor want to do about that gander in Lansing?  The ultimate plan for Lansing could very well be coming up very soon, and here's why:

After repeated extensions, the state Public Service Commission had given plant owner Cayuga Operating Company LLC and power transmitter New York State Electric & Gas Corporation until Dec. 23, 2013 to file their second- or third-draft re-powering proposals.  And, supposedly, the PSC could make a choice, as early as Dec. 28.

However, as noted above, both Cayuga Operating and NYSEG on Dec. 19 asked the PSC for another filing extension, this time well past the holidays to Feb. 28, 2014.  The environmental groups have already said they're against putting things off further (say what?), but what the PSC will do, we just don't know yet.

So far, Cayuga Operating and NYSEG have actually been split on the Lansing plant's future.  The owner, of course, wants to find a way to stay in business by switching.  The power transmitter suggests instead that a permanent shutdown could be coped with, mostly by re-wiring the grid around the production void that's left behind.  It's going to cost the ratepayers more money, either way.  By sending the power companies back to take another crack at it, the PSC appears to be asking for something in the middle.

In the end, it will be up to the technical staffers and political appointees with the PSC — and up the chain of command to the political specialists with the governor's office — to make a decision.

The biggest questions for Cuomo are undoubtedly not cents per kilowatt hour, or how many towers it'll take to rig up new or improved power lines, or what happens when we get Hurricane Sandy, The Sequel.  Instead, the biggest questions for Cuomo are these:  If I actually make the trip out there, and splash out a re-powering announcement, like I did in Dunkirk…  Will there be cheerleaders?  Will there be a band?  Will far-left local Assemblywoman Barbara Lifton agree to hold up a sign that actually thanks me, for once?

Unfortunately, it doesn't look likely.  As you might imagine, the Greater Lansing community has also been split, in fact much more severely than the ordinary people out in Dunkirk. 

On the public sector economic side — people who pay taxes, or collect taxes, especially school taxes, don't even get me started on school taxes — these people have been reeling through a collective bout of sticker shock, taking notice of the forecast without the Lansing plant still alive to help carry that weight.  And, on the private sector economic side, it turns out there are actually still a few skilled people in the Ithaca area who work for a living on things other than servicing tourists, holding down a job at one of the colleges, or fighting the power from inside a not-for-profit.

But then there's also the "grassroots."
 

A now-curious motto on letterhead for Tompkins County's Town of Lansing.

Like its Tompkins County neighbors, Lansing is the sort of town which has already passed and then extended an activist-sponsored one-year moratorium on shale gas development, calling it "heavy industry" — while at the same time working overtime to keep open the state's biggest rock salt mine, extending right under Cayuga Lake, and while at the same time acting as well-compensated host to this mammoth coal plant, now possibly in line to start burning natural gas fracked through a process of "devastation" out of Pennsylvania.

No "heavy industry," that is, except for the real heavy industries they're already familiar with.

The re-powering choice should really be tied up in ethical knots over New York's gross hypocrisy over shale gas.  That's because, to re-power Dunkirk or Lansing with natural gas, Cuomo must call upon a North American supply, about 40 percent of which is at last count now produced using high-volume hydraulic fracturing in horizontally drilled shales.  But none of that methane has yet to come out of the ground, in that technological way, from within New York's state lines — not a single molecule.  That's because Cuomo has yet to work up the political nerve to simply declare New York as finally "Open For (That Kind Of) Business," even in a closely regulated way.

Instead, Cuomo has so far been taking the anti's NIMBY oath on natural gas — a "Yes, please" to the consumer-level benefits, but an "I'll get back to you" to coping with any of the real or perceived production impacts.

And these same activists have been pitching the mantra in Lansing that less power would be somehow more.

Will Cuomo buy into that, too?

If you've got a lot of free time, and some spare bandwidth, the PSC has a whole electronic filing cabinet about this case that's getting regularly updated online here.

Close readers will notice that the usual Ithaca-based Park Foundation grantees from New York's ongoing frack fight are also on the case, presumably spending some of their fully reported money as state-registered lobbyists:  Earthjustice, Sierra Club, Citizens Campaign, Environmental Advocates, Community Environmental Defense Council, etc.

Millennium Pipeline Trims North-South Plan Now Thinks It'll Just Stop in Cortland

   Proposed Millennium Phase 1 Pipeline: North-South Pipeline Connector by Andy Leahy

This south-to-north natural gas pipeline interconnect into the Syracuse area was a trial balloon originally floated May 9, 2013 by the private sector consortium known as Millennium, which includes National Grid. 

The pipeline people went through a process, peculiar to the industry, of polling natural gas shippers to see if they might have enough future product to warrant building it.  But, it turns out, there's not enough market interest right now to justify building all of it.

Though both the old and now-modified proposals have always offered the hope of more private sector expenditure, utility infrastructure, and tax base, mainstream media in upstate New York didn't take much immediate notice of the original announcement.  Instead, part-time electronic shale gas news specialists, such as NY Shale Gas Now and Marcellus Drilling News broadcast the news, virtually right from Day One.

Mainstream reporters did their part by simply waiting for the opposition to form, which it inevitably did.  Then, in their judgment, it was news.  For some reason, that's how we do things in New York.

Over the last six months, Millennium has said nothing further publicly, but now we have an update this morning, Dec. 18, from Tim Knauss of the Syracuse Post-Standard, who must have actually picked up the phone and convinced a spokesman to say something:  The original idea has at some unknown point in time been reduced in length, and now Millennium's thinking of just stopping in Cortland (though even that possibility is still "under review").

In the intervening six months, the most interesting thing about this tentative proposal — at least to me — is how much time, expense, and effort NIMBY and anti-shale gas activists have put into shooting it down, before it's even really underway. 

Since there's still a possible plan afoot to put in a natural gas pipeline between at least the Millennium's main west-east line in the Southern Tier, and the southwest-northeast Dominion linkage accessible near "downtown" Blodgett's Mills, south of Cortland, I expect the anti-development effort will undoubtedly go on.  But it's likely that the key part of the opposition's Sixties demographic base living in southern Onondaga County or northern Cortland County will now be somewhat less energized, and some will move on to worry about something else.  To keep the protest alive, organizers are going to have to try and get a reaction out of people in somewhat less anti-everything rural Broome County and southern Cortland County, areas that I'm pretty familiar with, as a native of Whitney Point in northern Broome. 

(To that, I say — "Show me the tax roll!"  Or, "Where do I sign to get off fuel oil?"  Or, "What are they paying per foot?"  Or, "How soon are they hiring?")

But let's just take a quick look at all that opponents have already done, in just six months, in opposition to something that no one could really be sure would even move forward:

The opposition named itself Stop the I-81 Pipeline and put up a Wordpress blog.

And also a Facebook page.

They had lots of local "educational" meetings, and got their fight onto the Syracuse cable TV news.

Also, Binghamton AM radio. 

Of course, they got glowing, heartfelt "our people" coverage on public radio's America's Natural Gas Alliance-sponsored "Innovation Trail" (which tends to run a lot of spin in opposition to certain innovations), sometimes out of Syracuse, and sometimes out of Binghamton — once, twice, three times, maybe more.

They put up at least one You Tube video.

And they got themselves inserted into numerous, pre-existing, anti-frack web sites, such as GDACC, Shaleshock, Marcellus Protest, Bill Huston, and many others.  (Sorry, but I can't bring myself to link to all that shit.)

Does this seem to anyone like overkill, or what?

Of course, Millennium is saying that none of this early-bird protest factored into its decision to shorten the plan, while Syracuse-area activists are tweeting congratulations of the latest news as a major victory.  Whether it really mattered or not is hard to say, but — judging from the similar, FERC-proposed Constitution Pipeline, which also faces full-time opposition, but is still on track — I doubt it mattered much, compared to the economics.

To me, though, all this bodes unwell for anything ranking as traditional "progress" in upstate New York.  No one organizes to support projects (or to find ways to maximize the public benefit, or to minimize the impacts).  Instead, plenty of folks are ready to invest much of their free time into railing against them, even if they just wind up wounding their neighbors by doing so.  Media outlets don't cover the proposals; they just cover the conflicts.

You add all that grief to the long-complained-of tax and regulatory climate, and it's really no wonder.  Really, they should just put up signs along the highway entry points of fuel-oil-burning towns like Castle Creek, Whitney Point, Lisle, Killawog, or Marathon...

Population:  Fewer and Fewer Every Day

Also Now Overdue: New York's Updated Energy Plan

Anybody else wonder what's going on here?

An expert inter-agency panel of energy specialists in New York has been meeting fairly regularly since Sept. 2009 in order to update the state's Energy Plan, as directed by the legislative and executive branches.

The whole process is as dully transparent as things get in New York, on a seldom-visited web site here.

Energy planners went through a similar exercise previously in 2009, and in 2002.  But — to keep on top of the inexorable changes — the wheels were set in motion four years back to get the plan updated by 2013.  The 2013 draft was said to be due in Fall 2013, and the final by Spring 2014.

Judging by the astronomical calendar, I suppose that means they've got a few days left.  Judging by the foot of snow I just shoveled, their time is already up.

But the draft plan is still nowhere to be found on their web site.

Does that kind of delay rank as news in New York, or is it just another sleeping pill?

New York's energy planning delay thematically syncs up with the state's dysfunctional gridlock over the very much related, now-five-plus-years-old fracking question:  Can this state can ever find a regulated way to let its landowners (or resident workers, such as myself) seek a small piece of the supply side in the burgeoning shale gas business — without falling to pieces over any of the real (or over-hyped) environmental impacts?

[Another digression, because I just can't help myself:  It's worth noting that dysfunctional gridlock has a very long history in New York; it's one of our primary sources of amusement.  The most interesting, most recent, case study of this Empire State Illness is the Full Century that was required before state officials figured out a way to sort out a seemingly minor land-title ruckus that had long festered with a couple hundred Adirondack camp owners in the Raquette Lake area.  That one's gotta be a record.  Voters just finally fixed it by a quit-claim-for-land-purchase-money swap, as posed by a ballot proposition in Nov. 2013.  (Like nobody could have figured out something similar back in 1899!)  In both cases — shale gas and Adirondack issues — the eternal gridlock is not just sourced directly to intractable political conflict; it's sourced much more directly to the legal barricades that Conflict Warriors have erected, over many prior years, to give them forts to fight from in the future.  For shale gas, the legal barricade is known as SEQRA, which started merely as a rationalistic project planning requirement to analyze and mitigate against environmental impacts, but has evolved to become a way for opponents to politically kill projects.  That's what the whole tortured shale gas SGEIS process flows from.  For the Adirondacks, the legal barricade was long ago cast in stone in the hallowed "Forever Wild" provision of the State Constitution — thou shalt not cut any state-owned trees, or convey any state-owned land, inside The Blue Line.  But "Forever Wild" has evolved to mean that you need the state equivalent of an Act of Congress, just to put to rest a land-title glitch which originated with clerical errors from, like, the mid-to-late 1800s.  Few in New York seem to think this may have, at some point, gotten out of hand; we're pretty acclimated.]

But back to New York's energy planning, where it's worth noting that the technological innovation of shale gas is, without question, the primary change in energy markets to have materialized (or much more clearly materialized) since planners last put out a plan in 2009.

Close, cynical readers such as myself are very much interested in knowing how these 2013 planners are going to grapple with the internal conundrum of having to choose a path forward on shale gas.  They could continue to advocate for a regulated harvest of the state's indigenous shale gas resource, as they did before.  Or else they could run with the inescapable alternative:  Openly advocate Not In My Backyard as a matter of official state energy policy.

NIMBY is exactly where New York is already headed:  We're burning more and more natural gas.  In fact, the governor just announced over this past weekend that he's making the necessary arrangements to get the private sector to convert a shuttered Buffalo-area electricity plant to burn natural gas instead of coal.  But, to get it done, New York must draw on a U.S. supply that was most recently touted as now about 40% credited to hydraulic fracturing in tight rocks, all occurring out of state, or out of country.

Certain places in New York happen to sit a mile or so above the right kind of bedrock, but the right kind of drilling and fracking has never been allowed to occur in New York.  We'd rather just pay the money to import the stuff fracked out of Pennsylvania for heat and power (and for peace of mind for some), here in New York.

Energy planners, the last time around, back in 2009, can be seen in hindsight to have been surprisingly gung-ho and confident in recommending the state "encourage development of the Marcellus Shale natural gas formation with environmental safeguards that are protective of water supplies and natural resources."

Not that any of those words have mattered so far, but — just out of morbid, historical curiosity — here's more of what the energy planners had to say, back in the day, in planning for the rise of shale gas:

In-State Potential and Development Progress

With the emerging recognition of the Marcellus Shale natural gas potential, there is a renewed interest in natural gas development in-state.  At this time, in-state natural gas production from about 6,700 active natural gas wells supplies about five percent of the State’s requirements. The Marcellus Shale gas formation extends northeast from West Virginia, through Pennsylvania to southwestern New York, and holds great promise for future development.

The Marcellus Shale's total gas in place is conservatively estimated to be approximately 168 trillion cubic feet, but the figure might be as high as 516 trillion cubic feet.  New York's portion of total recoverable gas remains unknown; however, the State’s natural gas production is expected to increase significantly over the forecast period due largely to the projected production from the Marcellus Shale formation.  The State’s natural gas production is expected to more than double from 55 billion cubic feet in 2007 to about 146 billion cubic feet, representing about 11 percent of the State’s natural gas requirements by 2020. 

Although the addition of Marcellus Shale production is expected to result in a significant increase in New York production over the planning period, the natural gas model reflects a conservative Marcellus Shale natural gas production level to account for potential permitting and production difficulties related to horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing.  If these difficulties are minimized, Marcellus production levels could potentially be much higher. This resource presents an opportunity for the State to unlock substantial economic value while helping to achieve several of the Energy Plan’s key energy policy objectives. 

Further, New York-based natural gas extraction would create jobs, create wealth for upstate landowners, and increase State revenue from taxes and leases and royalties. Development of State-owned lands could provide much needed revenue relief to the State and spur economic development and job creation in economically depressed regions of the State.

In pursing this economic development opportunity, however, the State should first examine the development of mineral rights only for properties owned by the State which are located outside the Adirondack and Catskill Forest Preserves and State parklands under the jurisdiction of the Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.

For development of the Marcellus Shale, horizontal well completions combined with hydraulic fracturing are likely to provide the best means for producing economic volumes of natural gas.  While neither horizontal drilling nor hydraulic fracturing is new to natural gas development in New York, there are environmental concerns with respect to the effects of fracturing on water supplies, and disposal and contamination issues related to the chemical composition of the fluids used in the fracturing process. 

Additional concerns regarding drilling in the Marcellus Shale focus on the potential local impacts to communities, including increased truck traffic, noise, aesthetics, and impact on quality of life. DEC regulations govern the well permitting, drilling operations, and well site restoration when drilling is completed. To assess the potential environmental concerns related to the development of the Marcellus Shale formation in New York, DEC is reviewing horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing in the context of a Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (SGEIS).  A draft SGEIS was released by DEC in September 2009 that proposes a number of safety measures, protection standards, and permits for drilling activities.101 The public comment period on the draft SGEIS is open through December 31, 2009.

Recommendation

Support private interest and investment in drilling in the Marcellus Shale natural gas reserves and natural gas pipeline expansions to improve supply and deliverability of natural gas to markets in New York in an environmentally acceptable manner.

Establish final DEC regulatory requirements for drilling and pipeline construction.

Coordinate regulatory requirements for drilling and pipeline expansions.

Study private investment in extracting natural gas in the Marcellus Shale on State-owned lands outside of the Adirondack and Catskill Forest Preserves and State parklands under the jurisdiction of the Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.

Shameless Sunday: Frackophobic Gov. Cuomo to Convert WNY Coal Plant to Natgas — Fracked Out of State

This is a real New York doozy here.

But I guess only my ears are burning, not Cuomo's.  He's probably settling in for some afternoon football.

My take on this is that it's a win-win-win-win for everybody in Western New York — people who breathe air, power consumers, taxpayers, local governments, skilled workers, you name it.

Everybody, that is, except for the alternatives crowd which fought against it, but lost.

And everybody, that is, except for the New York landowners — and natural gas field specialists, such as myself — who have been clamoring for more than five years now to get in on the supply chain, but are still losing.

I'm still waiting for a sign to appear outside Cuomo's next $1000-per-plate political fundraiser:

Dude — Buy Local!

Fact-Check: Follow (Some of) the Money As it Lobbies NYS on Shale Gas

[Original post Dec. 13, 2013, then I made a number of fixes through Dec. 15.]

I started down the wayward path of this kind of fact-checking because of an incredibly sloppy article appearing on Politico's new Capital New York outlet Dec. 6, 2013.

There they reported that just two anti-fracking green groups spent only $43,094 on lobbying in New York during the first half of 2013.  That paltry figure was set against the mammoth, $667,159 spent on lobbying during the same period by four different arms of industry (three definitely pro-fracking organizations, and the fourth just a power seller that got unfairly thrown into the mosh pit, for some reason). 

This was done by the reporter in order to "prove" the headline:  "Fracking industry out-lobbies opponents, still loses ground."

But — if you actually check, as I did — pressure groups with anti-fracking positions spent $352,569 during just the first half of 2013 — pushing elected, appointed, and professional-class officials at many layers of government in New York. 

At least, that's according to the tallies of those organizations which actually complied with state-mandated disclosure reports on lobbying, as maintained by the Joint Commission on Public Ethics, commonly referenced by Albany insiders as JCOPE.

But before we get too far into this, let me just ask a question here — is there any fundamental, underlying unreliability to this kind of back-of-the-envelope, journalistic math?

Yes, lots, actually.

THE FIRST ISSUE:  SOME REPORTERS IN NEW YORK FRANKLY SUCK AT DOING THEIR JOBS

Right off the bat, the first problem with math performed by journalists is that most young, drama-inculcated reporters — working on deadline, writing two or three news stories a day — don't have the time, inclination, or social/professional rewards to even do a proper job of polling JCOPE's data.

As I said, by my assessment, ten different presumably anti-drilling green groups reported spending $352,569 — not two organizations, spending $43,094, an instance where the reporter can be shown to have referenced only about 12% of what's fully transparent and accessible of record.

On the mostly-but-probably-not-all, pro-drilling industry side, 18 different companies or trade associations reported spending $1,721,739 — not four entities, spending $667,159, a case where the reporter (even with an error of over-reach) managed to capture just about 39% of what's on the open record.

Also missed — from the known-to-be pro-drilling landowner perspective — two organizations spent $168,723.  These groups represent the often-ignored resource owners, legitimate stakeholders who take the position of pleading to re-legalize opportunity regarding what turns out to be their valuable shale gas.

Also missed — from the presumably pro-drilling trade union outlook — two labor unions spent $196,701.  These groups represent the even-more-often ignored skilled tradespeople, also legitimate stakeholders who are pushing for more work.

What if you extrapolate the total total across the whole of 2013, on the basis of records which so far show expenditures in just first half of the year?  That would suggest that pressure groups — each with at least some kind of position one way or another on the fracking question — are on track to spend nearly $5 million in on-the-record lobbying in New York.  What they all spent lobbying in prior years — since at least 2008, when the whole fracking question exploded to become such a big issue in New York — could also be examined.  But I'll have to look into that, some time later.

THE SECOND ISSUE:  WHO GETS MEASURED?

Next, note that my analysis leaves out groups that refrained from using — in their free-form description of lobbying topics — such explicit key words or phrases as, say, hydraulic, frack, moratorium, oil and gas, natural gas, shale, drilling, SGEIS, or HVHF.  Or another way of saying this is that my analysis leaves out groups that described their interests much more vaguely.

Right away, for instance, I can already see that the Business Council of New York — which has routinely taken a decidedly pro-fracking stand on its well-worth-it Capital Business Blog — escapes my round-up.  That's because they spent $230,757 during the first half of 2013, working on topics they chose to describe as:

"ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEDURES, BUDGET, BUSINESS REGULATIONS IN NYS, CONSTRUCTION, CONSUMER AFFAIRS, CONTRACT PROCUREMENT, E-COMMERCE, ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, EDUCATION, ENERGY, ENVIRONMENT, FEDERAL ISSUES THAT IMPACT NYS, FINANCIAL SERVICES, GENERAL COUNSELS, HEALTH, INNOVATION, INSURANCE, LABOR/HUMAN RESOURCE, LEGAL REFORM, LIABILITY REFORM, MEDICAID, OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY & HEALTH, OUTSOURCING, SMALL BUSINESS, STATE SPENDING, TAX, TELECOMMUNICATIONS, TORT REFORM, TRANSPORTATION, TRAVEL & TOURISM, UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE, WAGE THEFT ACT REVISIONS, WORKERS' COMPENSATION, WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT"

Also escaping notice is the Environmental Defense Fund, which — though you sure don't hear much about this, at least within the echoey confines of New York State — actually comes down on the pro side of regulated shale gas development as a national platform.  EDF has two reporting lines for the first half of 2013, spending $191,979, but it was on "ENVIRONMENTAL AND TRANSPORTATION ISSUES."  I guess they're thinking that ought to cover it.

NYPIRG's another one.  They were there on fracking in prior years, but must be they stopped lobbying this year, if the database can be trusted for their absence.

How many others — pro, con, or somewhere in between — are missing or disguise their pressure on the fracking question by hiding behind similar veils of vagueness, that's anybody's guess.  You wanna take a crack at it, as I said, the data's all online here.

Furthermore, one can even raise questions about those that I have included:  Is everybody in "industry" pro-fracking?  In this grouping, for instance, my list lumps in GE, waste haulers, Hudson Valley real estate people, and the small-spending Ecology & Environment (a consultant that does business with whomever's hiring, having even done some work for the NYS DEC on the SGEIS, and the federal EPA on its ongoing shale gas study).  For each of these, their official interest in fracking is likely to be a lot more nuanced than just pro or con.

THE THIRD ISSUE:  WHAT ARE ALL THESE LOBBYISTS REALLY WORKING ON?

Even more crucially, journalistic math also glosses over the fact that each pressure group reports all lobbying on all their issues of interest.  There's no line item for fracking, and this is fundamentally an equal-opportunity distortion.

So, on the pro side, just as a for instance, we have the American Petroleum Institute spending a whopping $503,903, but it was on any of these things: 

"ALL MATTERS AFFECTING THE PETROLEUM INDUSTRY, BIOFUELS, ZONE PRICING, PRICE GOUGING AND OTHER MARKETING ISSUES, HYDRAULIC FRACTURING IN THE MARCELLUS SHALE, NAAQS STATE IMPLEMENTATION PLANS, REGIONAL GREENHOUSE GAS ISSUES, UNDERGROUND AND ABOVE GROUND STORAGE TANK RULES, LOW CARBON FUEL, OIL SPILL REMEDIATION, GENERATORS, STRATEGIC FUEL RESERVE"

That undoubtedly represents a long list of kinda complicated positions for the API to present, year-round, on behalf of its membership, to any number of state and local law-making and rule-making branches.  I have not been paying attention to this sort of thing my whole life, but I think it's fair to say that much of the API's expensive effort has gone on and on for years in New York, and similarly would have gone on since 2008, whether or not this state's boundaries were thought to even contain any shale gas worth fighting about.

Similarly, on the anti side, just as an equal time example, we have the Citizens Campaign for the Environment spending $83,035 on any number of these things: 

"WIND ENERGY  CLIMATE CHANGE  GREAT LAKES PROTECTION  ESTUARY PROTECTION  MARCELLUS SHALE   DESALINATION  PLASTIC BAGS  OCEAN PROTECTION  RENEWABLE ENERGY TECHNOLOGY   ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION FUND  SSER PROTECTION  ONODAGA LAKE CLEAN UP  SEWAGE TREATMENT FUNDING  WESTERN BAYS PROTECTION - TMDL  BAY PARK STP  LAND PRESERVATION  MARCELLUS SHALE DRILLING  DRINKING WATER PROTECTION  WETLANDS   CARMANS RIVER PROTECTION   HYDROFRACKING  SEWAGE POLLUTION RIGHT TO KNOW  AQUATIC INVASIVE SPECIES  CLAM RESTORATION   FORGE RIVER   GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE  LI PESTICIDE USE MANAGEMT PLAN  OCEAN PROTECTIONS  BROOKHAVEN RAIL TERMINAL  TOXIC IN CHILDRENS CLOTHES   SOLAR POWER  SAFE DISPOSAL OF MERCURY  SHARK FINNING  BV7  ONONDAGA LAKE RESTORATION  SAFE DISPOSAL OF PHARMECEUTICAL DRUGS  HYRDROFRACKING   CHILD SAFE PRODUCTS  COMBINED ANIMAL FEED OPERATIONS  PAHRMACEUTICAL SAFE DISPOSAL  NORTHPORT HARBOR WATER QUALITY PROTECTION  RECYCLING  CLOSED CYCLE COOLING FOR POWER PLANTS - BTA  LONG ISLAND COMPOST  BROOKHAVEN LANDFILL   LONG ISLAND SOUND   DRINKING WATER PROTECTION   PLASTIC BAGS  MARINE DEBRIS   AQUATIC INVASIVE SPECIES  LAND PRESERVATION"

Quite a list, eh?  (And it looks like they could really use a spell-checker.)  But, again, much of this green agenda would go on and on, regardless of shale gas.  The Citizens Campaign is one of New York's regularly encountered, door-to-door money seekers, using (or abusing) idealistic youngsters to carry out its fund-raising scheme in well-off, well-meaning, left-of-center, can't-say-no neighborhoods, such as where I live and make a living in Syracuse, NY.

There are probably only two entities on my list which can be off-handedly summed-up as exclusively focused on shale gas as a single issue — the anti group Frack Action, and the landowners' coalition JLCNY, representing the pro side.  Though I haven't yet actually checked, all of the rest are likely to have been working in New York on all kinds of issues prior to 2008, and that's still pretty much a lot of what they're still up to.

So the bottom line on this is that these JCOPE records are a highly imperfect measure of everything that certain, selected pressure groups care about, that's being used by simple-minded journalists to measure just fracking pressure (pun not intended, but I'll just leave it).

OTHER ISSUES:  THIS IS AN APPLES-TO-APPLES COMPARISON?

Any other issues?  Yes, in fact, there are. 

For one, not every organization actually diligently follows the law and files these reports with JCOPE, which I'm given to understand is required twice annually. 

And, for two, it's unlikely that those which do report have been equally diligent in reporting all their pressure expenditures as lobbying.  For this second issue, you'd need a team of sober-but-hungry accountants — with access to not just the tax forms, but the actual books — to forensically determine how much any of these groups are wiggling within the generous leeway provided by this entire reporting scheme.

Pro or con, it doesn't matter — the Average Joe has little assurance whatsoever that anybody's really checking, though all this does raise a fair question:  Is it possible that some groups sleep very well at night, comfortable in the knowledge that they'll get a pass with their routine under-reporting, while other groups are too freaked out by the prospect of official or media exposure to take a chance on this?  I'd like to pointedly suggest that — right now, in New York, other than maybe banks, hedge funds, or Wall Street in general — there are few fatter political targets than the likes of the API.

But let's go back to my earlier point:  Who is illegally not reporting their lobbying expenditures as lobbying? 

Christ, you'd need an intern to figure all that out!  It would be like shooting ducks in a barrel, but you'd still need an intern.  In fact, this could be a very long list — and maybe I'll come back and add to it another time.  But, just off the top of my head, by way of getting things started:

Artists Against Fracking.  This is Yoko Ono and company.  They get fans to "take action" and write letters to the governor from this web site, and presumably through other media.  The AP surprisingly busted them a while back for unregistered lobbying, but they still haven't gone legit since.

A Million Fracking Letters Dot Com.  Pretty self-explanatory, but they're not on JCOPE's list.  It doesn't look like they're even organized as a not-for-profit.

Community Environmental Defense Council.  This is the wife-and-husband duo of lawyers, Helen and David Slottje, out of Ithaca.  For some many months now, they've received quite a bit of money from the Park Foundation, also out of Ithaca, to basically go full-time, driving from town to town, putting on "pro bono educational workshops," which essentially pressure municipal jurisdictions to either permanently zone out local drilling, or else temporarily put it under a moratorium.  Sometimes, it's real; other times, it's just symbolic.  But, apparently, the Slottje's don't think their work is lobbying within the purview of JCOPE, as their group is a no show on the official record since 2007.  And everybody just let's them get away with this self-serving re-definition of what it is they do for a living, probably because it would just be can't-win, bad PR to challenge such activists.

(I later learned there is a public ethics law exemption from reporting for lobbyist efforts before municpalities with fewer than 50,000 in population.  That's a loophole which likely covers most of the CEDC's rounds.)

The Park Foundation.  This is where the Duncan Hines cake mix fortune is slowly getting spent by the family's succeeding generations, none apparently making a living as businesspeople anymore.  Park has been shown — even, on at least one notable occasion, by mainstream media — to be the behind-the-scenes bankroll for literally a dozen or more pro-environment, anti-fracking campaigns in New York.  Anybody can comb Park's 2013 and prior grant-making on their web site here, and collate more than $1.6 million spread around just this year on environmental issues — maybe not all of it in NY, and not all of it just on fracking.  But, either way, JCOPE is deaf, dumb, and blind to it; Park doesn't show up anywhere since 2007.

The state's media is also largely deaf, dumb, and blind to the machinations of Park or its army of "grassroots" operators and allies.  In New York, the watchdogs in the press are going to quietly slink away from this kind of equal opportunity investigative reporting, and it's because they get pressure, too.  As pro-drilling firebrand Tom Shepstone recently noted on his Natural Gas Now outlet, former Albany Times-Union scribe Jimmy Vielkind — now Albany bureau chief at Capital New York, and therefore in something of a position of authority over the former TU colleague who wrote the piece that originally set me off — is married to Environmental Advocates' Katherine Nadeau.  And Nadeau is somebody whom this and many other media outlets quote regularly on the fracking issue (in the case of Politico, without any disclosure of the connection) — at least when they're not all busy playing together, scribes and greens, in the same summer softball league.  It's just another reincarnation of the Old Boys Network, but everybody's younger, and not everybody's male, and the status quo they work to protect is something entirely different from what formerly ranked as establishment principles.

Then you've got a possibly even larger swath of Even Grayer Pressure Group Activity that's been costing somebody, somewhere, a boatload of money in an attempt to influence politics in this state, going on for more than five years now.  It may be pressure, but none of it technically ranks as lobbying.  In fact, for all anybody knows, this might be where the lion's share of the money should be followed, if it could be followed.

On the pro side, just as a for instance, Energy in Depth Marcellus, has always disclosed itself as an arm of the Independent Petroleum Association of America.  At one time, but apparently not so much anymore, IPAA was paying a small staff of generally young persuaders in both NY and PA, working under Shepstone, to regularly make the pro-frack case on blogs and other new media, tied into in-person reporting at a myriad of local frack battle happenings in the Marcellus zone.  But neither IPAA or E-in-D has ever shown up as a lobbyist in New York since 2007. 

Their argument is that their work is free speech, public education, or propaganda — depending on how you want to phrase it — rather than lobbying.

And, of course, both sides can and do play that game — in fact, very well.  On the anti side, the number of organizations spending money to use in-person public meetings, old media, web sites, and other new media to similarly "educate" the general public, including policy makers, toward the anti-frack side — well, it would just make your head spin.

How much have I spent so far on free speech, public education, or propaganda — depending on how you want to phrase it — through this blog?  Expenses:  Probably less than $100, transferring some digital video on a SUNY-censored lecture on the geology of black shales by the since-pushed-out New York State Geologist Taury Smith, and every once in awhile paying for downloads of various court documents through PACER.  Compensation: $0 (though I did once enjoy a sub and a beer with some plumbers and pipefitters, riding a union-rented bus, back from a pro-drilling rally at Albany).

This, I Gotta See: DEC Uses Twitter to Check Facts on "Fracking Brine" as Road De-Icer

I noticed yesterday that New York's DEC has taken to Twitter in a half-hearted effort to set the record straight on the state's latest crisis du jour — "Fracking Brine!" — which was birthed last week by Politico's new Capital New York media outlet, as part of an ongoing romance between the colorful worlds of persuasion, journalism, and ignorance.

And then, apparently, nursed along by other feverish media outlets.

@NYS_DEC Have you read the @wamcnews story? Are they - and/or Riverkeeper - wrong about frac brine being used on NYS roads?
— Watershed Post (@watershedpost) December 10, 2013

Close readers may note that the original Capital New York claims are impaired by some fairly well known, internally conflicted knowledge.  On the one hand, high-volume hydraulic fracturing in tight shales — also known as "fracking" — has been widely reported as still-under-ban in New York (and actually never before proposed in this state by industry, at least prior to Feb. 2008). 

According to opponents, when it suits their argument, fracking is a brand-new, dangerous technology that's been wisely put under moratorium in NY, and hasn't yet been given a full environmental review — in fact, something which really can't ever be done, by their reckoning.

However, these "facts" change when it suits a different argument.  Capital New York's Scott Waldman was effortlessly conned by Riverkeeper into reporting this road-deicing "fracking waste" is coming from 6,000 oil and gas wells that have already been drilled and fracked in New York!

So which is it?  Does NY frack or not?  Really, it looks like these Politico guys might have totally missed the really great scoop, hiding in the story, right in plain sight, the whole time:

New York Has Been Fracking for Last 50 Years!  Film at 11!

Of course, it turns out to be true that many of these old-school, mostly vertical wells in New York were completed over many past years by the always-and-still-permissable technology of low-volume hydraulic fracture — also known as "fracking" — a historical fact that proponents of domestic fossil fuels have been trying unsuccessfully to get across to the public for some time now.

So, if you're still confused by any of this, my only remaining advice is to simply get a copy of the latest dictionary of modern persuasion.  Mine shows that all watery waste produced from any oil and gas well — even a 50-year-old vertical that may have never been fracked to stimulate production — has now been helpfully re-defined as "fracking waste."

Or maybe the remaining confusion is because environmentalists and journalists don't know — or don't care to know — the geologic origin of the primary road de-icer known as rock salt, spread on roads during winter by most northeastern state and local highway departments.

It's deep shit.

For further assistance on the origin of rock salt, I've loaded up top a helpful fact sheet plucked from the DEC Minerals Division's latest (2011!) annual report.  To make this fully legible, you'll have to click it into a new window and zoom around — or you can get the original here.