Upstate New York, burdened by high taxes and a decaying industrial base more than a century old, will get no share of the boom enjoyed by neighboring Pennsylvania, courtesy of the oil and gas-rich Marcellus Shale deposits. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, smarting from the support a primary challenger enjoyed while promising to ban fracking, announced yesterday that he will instruct his subordinates to ban hydraulic fracturing. The move came during a Cabinet-level meeting in Albany, the state capital, in which Gov. Andrew Cuomo's environmental commissioner, Joe Martens, recommended a ban. (snip) Martens said the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation will put out a final impact study early next year that will suggest a ban on fracking, more formally known as high-volume hydraulic fracturing. Martens said he would follow the report with an order prohibiting the process. Despite intense efforts to discover actual negative health effects from fracking, none has...(Read Full Post)