This article originally ran on Forbes.com on December 31, 2024. All rights reserved.
Daniel B. Markind is a Forbes.com energy column contributor. The views expressed in this article are not to be associated with the views of Flaster Greenberg PC.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul recently doubled down on the Empire State’s refusal to allow fracking by signing a bill that would ban the technique outright using carbon dioxide instead of water. The ban extends the water-based fracking ban that was passed in 2010, and now makes New York one of the few states in the Marcellus Shale region to refuse to allow the technique to produce natural gas at all.
The ban was hailed by the usual environmental interests, such as Sandra Steingraber of the Concerned Health Professionals of New York, who said, “Fracking New York’s bedrock with liquid CO2 poses the same public health harms as fracking with liquid water – and adds a few more.”
However, not all of New York State is celebrating the fracking ban. Indeed, U.S. Congressman Nick Longworthy (R-NY) won appointment to the House Energy and Commerce Committee for the upcoming term beginning January 1, 2025.
Congressman Longworthy, whose 23rd Congressional District encompasses parts of New York State's "Southern Tier" and stretches from the suburbs of Buffalo in the west to Seneca Lake in the Finger Lakes region in the east, has been named to the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
What makes this appointment important is that Congressman Longworthy, a strong supporter of natural gas development, represents a district in New York State that has substantial natural gas deposits that could be reached by fracking, all of which are blocked entirely from production by New York’s ban. Having just been named to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Representative Longworthy may try to use his newfound influence to alter that stance and allow Southern Tier residents to benefit from natural gas production in the same way that their neighbors in Northern Pennsylvania now do.
In an article he authored for the Jamestown New York Post Journal, Congressman Longworthy wrote:
"It’s heartbreaking to drive through this area of New York’s 23rd district and feel the impact of the jobs, businesses, and young people leaving. They’ve been driven away by these out-of-touch policies, but politicians in Albany will continue to turn a blind eye to the struggles of the Southern Tier. Not anymore."
To amplify Congressman Longworthy’s point, according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency, in 2023 Pennsylvania produced 7.1 Tcf of dry natural gas (pure methane), ranking second only behind Texas and constituting 19.8% of total American natural gas production.
New York, on the other hand, produced only 8.2 Bcf, despite having much of its Southern Tier within the Marcellus Basin. New York’s production is actually down from 2018, while Pennsylvania’s has grown over 20%.
Of course, truly unlocking the energy potential of the Southern Tier requires not only developing the natural gas but also transmitting it to market. In his Post Journal article, Congressman Longworthy specifically noted the proposed Northern Access Pipeline, which, had it been allowed to proceed, would have delivered natural gas from Northeastern Pennsylvania to Western New York and up into Canada. Governor Hochul stopped that by (some would say) misapplying if not abusing the Section 401 Clean Streams Certification process to prevent the pipeline from being able to cross any New York State waterway. Now that a new Congress will be forming, expect Congressman Longworthy to be among the members calling for President Trump to reign in this abuse of gubernatorial authority when he takes office.
Despite these predictions, New York remains a very Democratic state, and energy proponents will no doubt still face an uphill battle in trying to change state policy. However, the sheer incoherence of current New York State energy policy means that it will hit a wall of its own making. Renewable energy, assuming it can be produced in sufficient quantities at all, must still be transmitted from the point of production to the point of consumption, or else its production is meaningless. That would require thousands of miles of new high voltage transmission lines in order to gain the benefits of so-called “green” energy at all. Meanwhile, as solar and wind power are, at best, only intermittent energy sources, not having a viable source of energy near constantly available when and where it is needed can be expected to lead to irrational results, like the Northeast states having to import Russian natural gas as recently as 2018, despite the Marcellus gas fields having a viable and reliable source of natural gas readily accessible to them from fracking virtually in their back yards.
Using recent history as our guide, New York is playing a dangerous and ill-advised energy game as it now bans another technically viable fracking method and prohibits pipeline construction through its borders entirely. One only needs to look at the recent experience of Germany after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 to see the danger of moving too precipitously toward solely renewable energy. Governor Hochul is betting a lot on the dramatic increase of renewable energy in the State’s daily mix. If this falters, she and the rest of New York State may be in for a tough winter.
