My name is State Senator Liz Krueger and I represent the 26th Senate District, which includes the East Side and Midtown areas of Manhattan.
I want to thank you for providing me with this opportunity to testify on the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s (DEC) proposed Draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (SGEIS) for High-Volume Hydraulic Fracturing.
I would like to start by saying, that while I appreciate that the DEC has extended the comment period to allow for more time to gather public input, the 30 day extension is not adequate. As you can see by the sheer volume of public participation in New York City alone, New Yorkers have a strong opinion on the future of fracking in their state and they deserve to be heard. I would like to request that the DEC extend the public comment period for another 90 days, giving the public a full 180 days to review and submit comments on the SGEIS.
This past weekend, in an article published by the New York Times on November 25th, Governor Andrew Cuomo was quoted as saying the following in regards to hydrofracking: “Let’s get the facts. Let the science and the facts make the determination, not emotion and not politics.”
Well, I couldn’t agree more with Governor Cuomo. However, these are the facts I’m looking at and the reality is that they lead to more questions than they do answers:
