Cuomo: No Walking Back On Fracking

Gov. Andrew Cuomo denied today in Syracuse there was any effort to delay hydrofracking and reiterated that his administration was moving forward with a thorough health study of the process in order to counter any claims made in an expected lawsuit.

Watch Gov. Cuomo Answer Questions From Press >> (TWC ID required)

“There is no step back,” the governor said prior to an economic-development bus tour his office was staging in Central New York. “A number of environmental groups had come in and stated a unified position basically there should be an independent review — an independent public health review. And that was there quote-end-quote demand.”

Cuomo did not mention the news from Friday that the Department of Environmental Conservation expected to miss its November deadline for submitting regulations for the controversial natural-gas extraction process and actually reopen the rule-making process.

The news perplexed and angered energy companies and landowners who stood to gain financially from allowing high-volume fracking in parts of upstate, including the Marcellus Shale in the Southern Tier.

And then on Monday, Bloomberg News reported that environmental regulators were being a little less than definitive when it came to revisiting the rule-making process.

Cuomo’s answer today didn’t really clarify where things stand, sticking to what he’s said before on the health impact study.

“We did agree that we could do more work on the public health review … and we said the state should conduct and we would avail ourselves of expertise from the public sector,” Cuomo said. “I think it would be a more thorough review and withstand a legal challenge.”

The governor also said he expects to make endorsements in several House races, but wouldn’t go into detail as to what his role would might be in key battleground districts across the state.

“It’s up to the campaigns that I’m supporting to determine the best way I can help,” he said. ”If they want to come I’ll come, if they want me to wave from a distance, I’ll wave from a distance.”