When a regulating agency fails - for 20 years - to issue updated regulations, even when urged to do so in an industry trade group audit, what does that say about their will to actually regulate?

When a regulating agency - the principal regulating agency for an industry - for 20 years uses mere permitting conditions - the 1992 GEIS - of questionable enforceability to 'regulate' the industry, what does that say about their will to actually regulate?

How was it that mere permitting conditions, originally intended to assist in unusual situations, came to be substituted generically across the state in place of real regulations?

Why has DEC been saying that "New York has the best regulations in the nation" when for almost 20 years, it has ignored its own 1992 GEIS in suppressing the regulations that were drafted from it?

Why is DEC co-mingling hearings & comment periods on the new permitting conditions (the unfinished SGEIS) and its new draft regulations, which should derive from the SGEIS, once completed?  Could it be that they don't want citizens to have enough time to examine the proposed regulations?

And why did the IOGCC/EPA recommendation, that DEC's rules expressly include protection of human health and environment, not make it into the current draft regulations? If DEC's Division of Mineral Resources - the sole governing body over oil & gas extraction - isn't looking out for your health,

WHO IS?

well fire

To download tif file of press release, please click on page 1 above

A Failure of Oil & Gas Regulation: NYSDEC Division of Mineral Resources Missing GEIS Revisions Department of Environmental Conservation Division of Mineral Resources Proposed GEIS (1992) Regulations 6NYCRR Parts 550 to 559  10/97 Workshop Draft Revised 3/9/2000   Index with links to issues of The New Franklin Register containing articles on oil & gas                                                         2011 Google - Imagery copyright 2011 GeoEye Obtained through FOIL request: September 2, 2011 letter from IOGA-NY (Independent Oil & Gas Association of NY) to DEC: We liked the way the 1992 GEIS didn't result in any regulations.     "The best regulations in the nation" - Otselic, Town of Smyrna, Chenango County, New York, 2011

Tropical Storm Lee, 9/2011, drowned fracking sand tankers, Pennsylvania

CDOG (Chenango Delaware Otsego Gas Drilling Opposition Group)  is a representative organization whose mission is to

1 create, assist, and coordinate action groups in the region

2 assemble and disseminate information to defend our families, land, and resources from potential harm.

3 critique agencies, leasing agents, and officeholders who downplay or obscure the dangers of gas drilling

4 help local governments strengthen and assert their power to protect their communities