Natural gas is lifting Pennsylvania’s rural areas, and especially its Northern Tier, out of poverty and Governor Cuomo, who wants to be President, would do well to look across the border for clues on how to improve his poll numbers outside the city.

New York’s Governor Andrew Cuomo has forsaken the Southern Tier of his great state in what appears to be an act of groveling before the NRDC and its friends, studiously avoiding a decision on whether or not to allow high-volume hydraulic fracturing, while conducting confabs, throwing out some grants and engaging in other pitiful gestures to suggest he actually gives a damn about the region. If he really did care, he’d be studying what’s happening in Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania, like all Northeast states, faces many challenges and it lacks the powerful Wall Street financial sector that drives so much of New York’s downtown economy and effectively shields the public from knowing just how bad things are upstate. Pennsylvania, though, has one huge advantage and it’s the Marcellus Shale. It has sustained Pennsylvania’s economy during a difficult period and helped spur a revival of rural fortunes, in particular, as the latest edition of Marcellus Shale Fast Facts from the Pennsylvania Department of Labor demonstrates.

http://naturalgasnow.org/what-natural-gas-has-done-for-pennsylvania...