The slow-motion process of developing state regulations to allow natural gas hydro-fracking in upstate New York seems to have reached stall speed, now that Governor Andrew Cuomo has ordered up a new health impact review that could force the Department of Environmental Conservation to miss a Nov. 29 deadline for issuing fracking rules.

June 2011 report by the Manhattan Institute’s Center for Energy and the Environment reviewed the likely economic impacts and reached this conclusion:

If the moratorium [on hydrofracking] is maintained, New York residents not only pay an opportunity cost, in present-value terms, of over $11.4 billion in lost economic output from 2011 to 2020; they lose state and local tax revenues of $1.4 billion and employment levels of 15,000 to 18,000 jobs.

While the process stalls in New York, the Pennsylvania shale gas boom has now spread to Ohio.

About the Author

E.J. McMahon

Edmund J. McMahon is Empire Center's founder and a senior fellow.

Read more by E.J. McMahon

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