As you know the Democratic Assembly and Governor Cuomo are doing all they can to delay or ban Natural Gas development. What you may not know is that the Senate, controlled by 29 Republicans in a coalition with 5 Democrats who formed the Independent Democratic Conference (IDC), has been our line of defense against the attempts to ban NG development and similar adverse legislation. This situation has made our progress slow, but thanks to the Senate we have not lost ground.

In a press release issued Wednesday afternoon, the Governor and state Senator Jeff Klein, Senate co-leader and head of the chamber's Independent Democratic Conference, indicated that the IDC's five members will form a majority coalition with the Senate Democratic Conference and end their partnership with Senate Republicans after the 2014 elections in order to address core Democratic policy initiatives.

The Democrats, along with the “Working Families Party” (WFP), have five main policy initiatives. Banning NG development is one of those five.

Even traditional mainstream Democrats should be upset by this move to accommodate WFP’s anti-gas stance. It is imperative that we defeat this attempt to take control of the Senate, ban NG development, and give downstate complete control over the legislative agenda. We must support the Republicans in their efforts to remain in office and in control of the Senate and give them a Republican Governor to work with as well. To accomplish these goals upstate voters must vote in record setting numbers this fall.

As maddening as this news is, it can help us. We can take our anger and focus it on accomplishing the points I made in the previous paragraph. In fact, we must!


Warm Regards,
Dan Fitzsimmons, President
Joint Landowners Coalition of New York, Inc.


DF/brc