Hydraulic Fracturing -- We Need Your Action NOW!  Hydraulic Fracturing Action Alert We Need Your Action NOW! The New York State Legislature is currently considering a bill (A10490/S7592) which would impose a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing for the extraction of natural gas or oil until 120 days after the EPA reports on its Congressionally-mandated study of the effect of hydrofracking on water quality. Today LWVNYS wrote a memorandum of support of the moratorium. Yesterday the Assembly bill was voted 22-7 out of the Environmental Conservation committee and sent to the Rules committee (standard procedure). The challenge now is to get the same bill out of the Senate Environmental Conservation committee and then have each bill passed on the floor of the respective chamber. Now we need all our members to push for passage of this legislation before the session ends. You may do this in two ways:

1. There is a lobbying day scheduled in Albany for this Monday, June 7. If you can attend on Monday, please notify Roger Downs who has the schedule of appointments with legislators (roger.downs@sierraclub.org). Print a copy of the memo and hand it to any legislators you lobby. We need your help to obtain passage before the legislative session ends.
2. If you cannot lobby, please call or fax your NYS Senator and Assemblyman/woman next week urging each to co-sponsor the respective bill and push toward passage before the end of session.

If we don't succeed, the DEC will produce its final regulations this fall, and drilling will start in 2011.

For background on LWVNYS concerns on this subject, see the critique of the draft DEC document last fall.