There was a fascinating town board meeting in Oxford, New York, Chenango County, recently. The town board was asked to consider enacting a ban or moratorium on natural gas development, which it decided to discuss in public forum. When word got out the board was going to be discussing natural gas, the prospective attendance grew to numbers the town hall couldn’t hold, so they were forced to move it to the local high school auditorium.

EID Marcellus was there in the form of yours truly…

Recently, we became aware of a list of supposedly tough natural gas questions floating around upstate New York. Assembled by another aging activist seeking relevance in a modern world and, more specifically, the small pond of Oxford, New York, these queries were, we heard, designed to stop pro-gas forces in their tracks. We requested a copy and, despite our reluctance to give any attention to our attention-seeking friend on the other side, decided the questions, if you can call them that,…

The anti-natural gas crowd hasn’t had much success trying to change Governor Cuomo’s mind on natural gas development. Among the many reasons this is the case, is New York needs all the help it can get as far as economic boosts are concerned. Now, in a last ditch attempt the anti-natural gas folks are sending out letters to Governor Cuomo’s campaign contributors in a desperate attempt to stop development in New York. Its equivalent to a last second sprint in a 200 meter race as a struggling…

Natural gas, really hydraulic fracturing, is producing major wins for America across the board.  The U.S. Census for 2010 includes some fascinating numbers from the American Community Survey. It indicates there are roughly 57 million American households or one-half of all households heat their homes with natural gas.  Add to that the high and ever growing proportion of our electric power and steam heat generated by natural gas and it becomes very clear just how dominant this natural resource…

We have done three previous posts on this blog pointing out the gargantuan flaws in Marvin Resnikoff’s work.  You can read them here, here and here.  We have noted his work is not only seriously blemished with numerous defects, but his testimony has been rejected again and again in courts of scientific research as well as law, qualifying him as the perfect “anti-expert.”  Well, it turns out the scientific community, may have had it with him, too.  The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has just…

Its finally done. The EPA has packed up and left town. They miraculously discovered that natural gas exploration has not had a significant environmental impact on Dimock. The sad part is that those of us who live here knew this fact long ago. We had to form a group, Enough Already! to fight a senseless proposed water line to our village. We had to form a group, Dimock Proud, to state our village is a place where the water is clean and the people are friendly. At least the rest of the world…

The Independent Oil & Gas Association of New York (IOGA-NY) has recently been taking Truthland out for screening in some of the far reaches of upstate and western New York.  EID Marcellus was there for a showing of the movie at the University of Buffalo.  It  was a private event and there was no connection with the school except for the location, a point made clear from the very beginning by moderator Cherie Messore.   The event turned out members of the press who, I must add, did an…

Despite assertions made over the last several weeks, Nationwide has not issued any new guidelines nor taken any new positions regarding fracking.

With the increase in hydraulic fracking, particularly in the Midwest and Northeast, Nationwide evaluated our position (as we routinely do with any of our coverages) and decided not to make any changes in our long-standing position on exclusions related to…

The University of Pittsburgh has recently released a survey conducted by them and titled The Pittsburgh Regional Quality of Life Survey.  This survey was undertaken in an effort to understand the behaviors and attitudes of greater Pittsburgh’s citizens.  The sampling strategy used in this project allowed the researchers to compare and summarize findings for the City of Pittsburgh and surrounding counties.  Given that a majority of the counties surrounding Pittsburgh are developing Marcellus…

Washington anti-gas rally flops bigtime!



Blame it on the heat. Or the start of the Olympics. Or the ill-timed Associated Press investigation revealing how top anti-gas activists routinely distort science. Or EPA’s decision to announce earlier that same week that Dimock’s water was, is and has always been safe to drink – demoralizing those who have dined-out on that talking point for years.



Whatever the reasons, Saturday’s anti-shale rally in Washington didn’t quite generate…

Dick Downey reports a “fractivist” ended the recent Otsego County Natural Gas Advisory Committee’s meeting by intoning the following statement:

  A dollar spent on natural gas is one less dollar spent on renewables.

Very deep, but what does this mean?  It’s probably about subsidies, so let’s scroll back to Economics…

Vic Furman says:



Several days ago I sat in the audience at a Town of Coventry Town Board meeting, once again enduring the rhetoric from natural gas opponents who think seeing Gasland made them experts on natural gas, hydraulic fracturing and the environment.  It was one hysteric cry after another, repeated endlessly at one meeting after another, with no facts to back up any of it.…

Well, its been said before and we will say it again.  The water in Dimock is safe.  It has now been declared by Cabot Oil and Gas, Pennsylvania DEP and the Environmental Protection Agency.  The agency’s latest findings match its…

Readers of our blog will recall we have previously addressed Marvin Resinikoff’s rhetoric on the subject of radon connected with natural gas, finding his arguments so seriously flawed as to be laughable.  We also heard Resnikoff speak in Steuben County last year and were singularly unimpressed.  Yet, the guy keeps surfacing as a favorite expert of every anti-natural gas interest group out there.  I am a consultant, myself, and often joke about the qualifications, my favorite being “three…

Living where I do, near the Delaware Valley, I have accumulated many friends over the years who have somewhat different opinions than me on a host of matters.  They are mostly folks who have “moved up from the city,” as both we and they say.  It’s a culture clash sometimes and often means we end up challenging each other a bit.  That’s, admittedly, a good thing whenever we can keep the debate civil, which is most of the time.  Recently, one of those folks sent around a piece to 300 or so of…

Last week members of several local coalitions in Sullivan County, New York, came together for an educational meeting on the Ad-Valorem shale gas tax, as well as a screening of Truthland.  According to Bob Williams of Windsor in Broome County the tax will work just like property tax and the money will flow directly back to the local community to be used to fix schools, hospitals, roads and more.

We discussed the need to look at Pennsylvania for examples of what occurs during…

Documenting the obvious is, seemingly, full-time work for some academics.   There are any number of websites offering lists of ridiculous studies funded by government or conducted at major universities.  There was, for example, that Stanford University study finding “athletes who get an extra amount of sleep are more likely to improve their performance in a game.”  Then, there was the study showing “teenagers’ use of cell phones after bedtime contributes to poor sleep.”  There are hundreds…

The following article was posted on our friend Nick Grealy’s No Hot Air blog on June 12 and is posted here at his request.



I keep on remarking that the actual level of controversy over “controversial” shale gas (156 Google News results in the last 24 hours alone) exists much more in the mind of journalists than the public.



As is obvious, I sometimes have no idea what I’m up to technically.  But according to the professional media, Twitter is the place to be for clued in and…

The latest issue of National Review includes a semi-serious, semi-humorous, essay that discusses the differences between various levels of not telling the truth – with liars holding the top honors.  The essay refers to a 1986 essay (later book) out of Princeton that discusses what makes one particular form of not telling the truth different from terms like “balderdash,” “claptrap,” “hokum,” “drivel” and “quackery.”  We are reminded of all these terms when we try to analyze what the…

I had the opportunity to see the film Truthland when it was shown at the Hilton Hotel in Scranton.  It was a good, solid presentation of facts and I especially enjoyed seeing it through Shelly?s eyes.  It gave a down to earth look at the issues.



I had to speak up during the panel discussion.



Most people in Northeast and Central Pennsylvania know me.  I spent 40 years in broadcasting, from radio to TV, serving as reporter, anchor and news director for the local ABC and CBS…