Group: Gas firms got 'exclusive access' to DEC report

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June 29, 2012

Group: Gas firms got 'exclusive access' to DEC report

BY JOE MAHONEY Staff Writer The Daily Star Fri Jun 29, 2012, 03:30 AM EDT

COOPERSTOWN -- State regulators provided the natural gas industry with "exclusive access" to draft drilling regulations weeks before the public was allowed to view them, giving attorneys for the industry an opportunity to try to weaken them, an environmental research group charged Thursday.

Environmental Working Group released a series of email correspondence between gas industry representatives and state Department of Environmental Conservation officials in which information was exchanged about the draft rules and a draft environmental impact statement before their release to the public.

The Washington, D.C.-based organization said it obtained the documents by filing Freedom of Information requests with both the DEC and the Cuomo administration. The group charged the governor's office released "even fewer records than the DEC" in response to the request.

"This is like giving the drilling industry three laps around the track while everyone else was left waiting on the starting block," EWG assistant general counsel Thomas Cluderay said in a statement. "The public needs to know whether New York regulators compromised the integrity of the state's drilling plan months ago, despite promises of keeping the process fair and transparent."

In one email, gas industry lawyer Thomas West -- one of the lawyers involved in the litigation aimed at shelving the town of Middlefield's ban on gas drilling -- urged the DEC to "reduce or eliminate radionuclide testing of the fluids that could wash from drilling sites."

The organization said West had the draft regulations while they were still being kept from an advisory group on hydrofracking that Cuomo's environmental commissioner, Joe Martens, had appointed in July.

The DEC defended the early exchanges with gas industry representatives, saying it is required by state guidelines to keep regulated stakeholders updated on any new regulations that could be imposed on them.

"To gather important feedback from stakeholders, the DEC has regularly and routinely met with environmental groups, industry, local government representatives and other stakeholders as it develops the final SGEIS (Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement) for high-volume hydraulic fracturing," DEC spokeswoman Emily DeSantis said. "In addition, the DEC is carefully reviewing and considering all comments received during the public comment period. These comments and stakeholder input will inform the program developed by the DEC."

She added: "Under the State Administrative Procedures Act (SAPA), state agencies are required to assess the impacts of the regulatory action on the regulated entity. Agencies cannot gather this data without holding meetings and engaging in other forms of communication with the regulated community prior to proposing the regulation."

Adrian Kuzminski, founder and moderator of Sustainable Otsego, said the emails show that West was "instructing" DEC officials on what he wanted in and out of the regulations well before the public could see the documents.

"This shows beyond a shadow of the doubt that the industry has been in the catbird seat writing the DEC regs for its benefit," he said. He said Cuomo should replace Martens as commissioner and shake up the agency to make it work in the public interest.

Cuomo said last week he is waiting for state lawmakers to leave Albany before the gas drilling regulations are released.

"I think it's actually better that we do it when the Legislature is not here because I don't want a political discussion," Cuomo told a radio interviewer.