Image from 2009 campaign contribution report for the Chesapeake Energy Corporation FED-PAC.
New York senator Kirsten Gillibrand has avoided taking a stand on natural gas drilling in upstate New York, a hard line to walk when the issue is playing an increasingly large role in state politics in an unusually dramatic election year.
Last year, she struck a neutral position on the issue when she asked the state to extend the public comment period on hydraulic fracturing. In a press release she issued at the time, she both praised the "tremendous economic opportunity" of fracking while defending the importance of "clean air and safe drinking water":
I am pleased that New York State has extended the comment period on drilling in the Marcellus Shale through the end of the year. While this proposal holds tremendous economic opportunity for New York, our quest for new sources of energy and growth cannot come at the expense of clean air and safe drinking water for New Yorkers. I commend New York State for allowing the public appropriate time to discuss the proposal.
Here's a hint about where Gillibrand's loyalties could lie: In March of 2009, she accepted a $5,000 donation from Chesapeake Energy Corporation, one of the leading gas drilling companies with interest in the Marcellus Shale. You can see the record of the contribution in Chesapeake's financial disclosure report for 2009, on page 94:Chesapeake Energy Corporation campaign contribution report 2009
Both Gillibrand and her opponent, the tea-infused GOP candidate Joe DioGuiardi, talk the talk on "green" issues, and both are advocates for clean-energy job creation in New York State. But neither has made a campaign issue out of hydrofracking. As any well-informed observer of the Marcellus shale debates knows well, when a politician talks about "clean" energy, the devil is in the details.
Earlier: Tracking the fracking cash.
