Sharpton pal Schneiderman conflicted on fracking

Sharpton under arrest, 2008

Back in April, we questioned New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's connection to race hustler  Al Sharpton, and wondered if most New York taxpayers realized that a leftist radical had become our state's highest legal officer.

Now we find Schneiderman, who ran for office promising to prevent the use of hydrofracking to recover New York's vast shale gas reserves, in the position of having to defend the practice in court.

Whe n Attorney General Eric Schneiderman was on the campaign trail last year, he released an environmental agenda with seven major initiatives he intended to take up in office.In red type, the document listed his top priority when it comes to protecting New York's land, air and water: "Sue to Prohibit Hydrofracking."

"He will make sure that no drilling took place until it was deemed to be safe and regulated by the DEC and EPA," the document reads, citing his "proven record of fighting against this new and unproven technology."

Fast forward to 2011, and Schneiderman now will likely face the task of defending a set of regulations proposed by the state Department of Environmental Conservation that would allow for high-volume hydraulic fracturing, with a bevy of restrictions, to move forward in New York.

While it might appear that New York is slowly inching toward possibly allowing limited horizontal drilling at some point in the distant future, analysts should try applying logical analysis to to Schneiderman's official position:

But Schneiderman, the former Democratic state senator from Manhattan, said he'll be able to balance his concerns about natural gas drilling with his duty as the state's top lawyer. Legal challenges are widely expected at some point, and Schneiderman has said he'll represent the state, as the law requires him to do.

"I think we're going to end up with a set of regulations that are designed to ensure that fracking is only done safely, and that has partly to do with how you regulate the process and partly to do with the areas that you allow fracking," Schneiderman said in a recent interview with Gannett's Albany bureau.

"That's an ongoing process with the DEC. They are my client, and we're hopeful that we're going to come up with a good set of regulations."

So we have a radical leftist, openly influenced by Al Sharpton, as New York's designated defender of shale gas.  Don't hold your breath.

Sharpton's pal Schneiderman

Schneiderman and Sharpton

Even way up here in the Finger Lakes, most folks have heard of race hustler Al Sharpton.  But many of you are reading this and wondering "who is this Schneiderman fellow?"

Eric Schneiderman works for you.  He's the career politician who replaced Andy Cuomo as New York's attorney general.  Scheiderman wants you unemployed, freezing in the dark.  Today's New York Post:

Critics of hydraulic fracturing were quick to pounce on last week's well blowout in Pennsylvania as proof that the controversial method of extracting natural gas is an environmental threat.

That includes state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who just days earlier rashly overreached and vowed to sue the federal government unless it commits within 30 days to conducting a full review of regulations that would allow natural-gas drilling in the Delaware River Basin.

At issue is fracking -- the controversial process in which a high-pressure mix of water, chemicals and sand is used to extract natural gas from rock formations.

And, Schneiderman notwithstanding, a federal review of fracking is under way -- and is just one of several.

Which is fine. Nobody is advocating reckless action.

But it remains that a good way to kill fracking is to study it to death -- which appears to be Schneiderman's real goal.

 Where does the track-suited troublemaker Sharpton appear?

The AG's activism is no surprise, of course. It's what he said he would bring to the job -- along with "an annex" in the AG's office for Al Sharpton.

An annex for Sharpton?  WTF?  The Post, September 9, 2010:

Sharpton's National Action Net work is in such fiscal disarray that an internal audit just five months ago concluded that its very continued existence is in "substantial doubt," as The Post reported this week.

But Sharpton isn't worried about losing his headquarters.

That's because state Sen. Eric Schneiderman has publicly promised that if he's elected attorney general, Sharpton & Co. "will have an annex in Albany for the first time in the history of the state."

Indeed, Schneiderman boasts that Sharpton's endorsement means he's now gotten "the Good Housekeeping seal of approval from the man from the House of Justice" -- whose notion of justice is a model that the AG wannabe says he will "seek to follow."

In October of that year, Syracuse grad Al D'Amato got right to the point:

D’Amato: Vote For Schneiderman Is Vote For Sharpton

Did you know who Eric Schneiderman is?  Do you support an "annex for Sharpton?"