New York makes its poorest residents pay for a political fantasy. The Cuomo administration banned shale fracking in 2014, bowing to the noise of “fracktivists.” Hochul complied and hit a double play. The result: energy poverty for the people who can least afford it.
Twenty-six percent of children in New York City live in poverty. Statewide, population 2.7 million. Politicians respond with more taxes and point the finger at the Feds – but the real answer is right under their feet. Trillions of cubic feet of natural gas, untapped, as Albany digs the hole deeper with bad policy and fills it with taxpayer money.
The numbers tell the story. A 2025 Heritage Foundation study found that New York’s fracking ban has created a wealth gap of $11,000 per person — $27,000 per family — compared to its neighbors in Pennsylvania, just across the border, where fracking is allowed. Before the ban, these provinces were economically equal. Since then, Pennsylvania landowners have collected thousands of dollars per acre in lease payments and sixteen percent of all gas sales have been cut off. New Yorkers get nothing for their rich reserves. It is state-sponsored pauperism.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE HELPS SUPPLY NEW ENERGY SOURCES
If fracking were allowed, New York would receive billions in royalties. Tax revenues would increase through good-paying jobs and well-capitalized drilling companies. The tide of those trillions of cubic feet of natural gas would lift all boats.
I know this because I’m fracking in New York. Mine might be the last business standing. Over the past twenty years, my company has drilled thousands of wells – no groundwater contamination, no low birth rates, no nosebleeds, no apocalypse. Nothing. Because fracking is safe. The data supports this. But data deniers won’t have it, and neither will the state’s neediest residents.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
The green alternative is not clean; it just looks cleaner. Renewable mandates come at the expense of massive land use, mining, the production of toxic batteries and a unique waste stream. And every solar farm and wind turbine must still be backed by natural gas or coal when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow. Albany knows this, but continues anyway – leaving New Yorkers with residential electricity costs 40% above the national average and natural gas prices 23% higher. The state imports nearly 80% of its energy, much of it from Pennsylvania. It’s the equivalent of throwing away cigarettes instead of buying them. The smoke still fills your lungs.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
Cuomo and Hochul are masters at importing energy and exporting opportunity. They have bowed to an unfriendly ideology at the expense of their poorest voters. Natural gas is the low-hanging fruit that New York has. It’s there.
And this is still the ‘before’ scenario. When AI data centers turn energy into a full-blown battleground—and they will—New York’s self-induced power shortage won’t just hurt the poor. It will hand the future to whoever has the gold. Governor Hochul, the fanatics you have appeased are not paying the utility bills. Your voters do. Open the taps.
CLICK HERE TO DAN DOYLE
